


Universe A and B

by CandyQueenAO3



Series: Ineffable Celestials [3]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Aziraphale loves Gabriel, Boss/Employee Relationship, Claustrophobia, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Whump (Good Omens), Dark Crowley (Good Omens), Dark-ish mostly, Gabriel Loves Aziraphale, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Good Person Gabriel (Good Omens), Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, It's Not Crowley and Aziraphale Who Have Reversed Roles, Jealous Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plague, Protective Gabriel (Good Omens), Romantic Fluff, established relationships - Freeform, mild food kink, temporary character discorporation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23313235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CandyQueenAO3/pseuds/CandyQueenAO3
Summary: One branch of Multiverse Theory states that for every choice you make, an Alternate Universe is created wherein you chose the opposite one.During the Great War, before the Fall, one Principality has to make a choice: will he save his superior, Gabriel, locked in life-or-death combat with a rebel? Or will he attempt to rescue an angel with red hair and amber-colored eyes being dragged down by the forces of darkness?This is the story of the choice he made.*~*~*~*~*EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 9:Faced with the prospect of being buried beneath a metaphorical avalanche of paperwork, Gabriel had reluctantly acquiesced with the condition that Aziraphale return home the moment it all became too much.That had been three years ago.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Celestials [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674949
Comments: 77
Kudos: 114





	1. A Glimpse into Universe B

Physicists, scientists, and philosophers have grappled with the theory of infinite, alternate universes ever since psychologist William James coined the term in 1895. Though the context of the word was different for James than it is now, current theory posits that there are an infinite number of alternate realities out there and, together, they make up the totality of existence in a great cosmic pile called the multiverse.

To sum it up: you, my dear reader may have lived in Brisbane all your life. Multiverse theory states that there is an alternate reality out there wherein you actually lived in _Kyoto_ instead. Perhaps you have red hair. In an alternate reality, it would be blonde. You might have a girlfriend. In an alternate reality, you would have a boyfriend instead. 

Multiverse theory states that all of these realities exist simultaneously, layered on top of one another like tiers on a cake, and are therefore all true. One notable school of thought regarding this theory, is the belief that every choice you make spawns an alternate reality in which you chose the opposite choice.

Maybe one day, at the ice cream shop, you debated whether to choose chocolate or vanilla. You decided to choose chocolate. According to the “branching” idea of multiverse theory, at the exact moment you picked chocolate, an alternate reality that has always existed yet never existed until now, sprung into being. In that one, you chose vanilla.

Such rules are no different for ethereal and occult beings. In fact, many would argue that the Multiverse Theory is a matter of metaphysics rather than physics proper. Either way, the spheres of Heaven and the circles of Hell are not exempt from this theory.

I do not know whether or not God is. I cannot speak for Them.

As it stands, more than 6,000 years ago, a great war was waged in Heaven between the rebellious forces of the Archangel Lucifer, and the counter-revolutionary armies of God. Near the end, before the Archangel Michael struck down Lucifer, and God cast out the rebellious, a lone Principality had to make a choice.

***~*~*~*~***

Aziraphale was tired when, by all accounts, he shouldn’t even _be_ so! These rebels, however, were _tenacious_ and it was all he could do to protect the troops in his platoon from being destroyed! 

His robes had been torn down the back from large, gouging claws that left angry, red welts in their wake but thankfully hadn’t broken his spine. The entire left side of his face was bruised and scraped from where he had been _dragged_ across the ground some ways back. The column of his throat still bore the dark purple ligature marks from a foe who had snuck up behind him with a length of cord to _garrote_ him.

The angel let his sword arm go limp, the tip of his flaming blade scraping across the ground. All around him were the sounds of battle, of the dying.

_This wasn’t right!_

He knew such a thought was dangerous, but in the moment he barely had the wherewithal to pay attention to his own surroundings, let alone reflect on complex moral thinking! But pay attention he did, and caught sight of his superior, the Archangel Gabriel, locked in one-on-one combat with a rebel.

Aziraphale made to go help him, when the universe gave a tremendous lurch. The fighting, however, didn’t stall, even when the rebels started being dragged down by oozing black tendrils of darkness. The Principality took a moment to reorient himself when he saw something else.

Several yards away, a rebel was being pulled into a yawning chasm that had opened up beneath him. This rebel fought hard against the bindings, sobbing in terror as wild, frantic tears streamed down his face. Another tendril crept forward to tangle in his sunset-coloured hair and the rebel let out another scream. He lifted a pair of eyes like honey and locked gazes with Aziraphale, who was rooted to the spot. The enemy angel extended a hand towards him.

“Please! Help me!”

Aziraphale glanced back over to Gabriel, who was now flat on his back with the rebel he was fighting having gained the upper hand. Gabriel lifted his spear in time to block a blow from his opponent’s sword that would have otherwise destroyed him. The Archangel noticed Aziraphale watching and called to him for aid.

The lone Principality had to make a choice.

And a new alternate universe was born.

***~*~*~*~***

In our universe, from this point on dubbed “Universe A”, Aziraphale would have chosen to attempt to keep the falling rebel, later known as “Crowley”, from becoming a demon. He would ultimately fail. Gabriel would manage to fight off his own opponent, see Aziraphale’s “betrayal”, and a simmering resentment for the Principality would manifest itself in passive-aggressive insults, sternly-worded notes, and thinly-veiled hostility for 6,000 years. Said resentment would later culminate in an explosive, “Shut your stupid mouth and die already” before sending Aziraphale to be destroyed in a pillar of Hellfire.

In an alternate universe, to be referred to as “Universe B”, Aziraphale would have left the angel-soon-to-be-known-as-Crowley to his fate and gone to rescue Gabriel. The angel-soon-to-be-known-as-Crowley would have watched, helpless, as the Principality who he thought would help him, turned his back on him. The former angel, now demon, would go down in a blaze of fire secure in the knowledge that there truly was _nothing_ good in Heaven. Universe A Crawley would have still Fallen, but at least he would have been somewhat comforted by his observation that not every angel had truly wanted the rebels like him to be cast out.

This is the story of Universe B.

***~*~*~*~***

Before we get into the tale of Universe B, we have to take a quick peek on Universe A post-armagetouttahere. I also have to ask you a simple question:

Is it spelled Bearenst _ein_ or Berenst _ain?_

You might have read the Bearenstein Bear books as a child. You might have had several, or just the one, and you might have enjoyed them very much. One day, in your adult life, you might have come across these books again, only to see the title was “Bearenstain” instead of “Bearenstein”. Confused, you may have done a quick google search, only to see that the _true_ spelling was “Bearenstain” all along. 

That can’t be right! You clearly remember it being “Bearenst _ein_ ”! You do some more frantic googling and find that hundreds of other people have experienced the same phenomenon. They all thought it was “Bearenstein” too! Now you just feel confused. How could so many other people out there make the same, consistent mistake?!

The most commonly agreed-upon explanation is that people were simply misremembering. After all, -ain and -ein are only one letter apart. However, a few more creative individuals would point to the Multiverse Theory as the cause of this. They claim that alternate universes are not static, but actually move about through reality. They say that, sometimes, two parallel universes “collide”, and details from one leak into the other.

To them, the fact that you and hundreds of other people remember it as “Bearenstein” means that you and those other people received a brief glimpse into an alternate universe where it was truly “Bearenstein” all along.

Universe A and Universe B are about to do something similar. 

As Crowley and Aziraphale of Universe A, currently residing in a shared flat above a bookshop in Soho, bed down for the night a few years after the-end-that-wasn’t, Universe B collides with theirs.

***~*~*~*~***

_Aziraphale opened his eyes to find himself surrounded with the familiar sights and sounds of Eden. He immediately knew he was dreaming and settled in to enjoy a pleasant stroll down memory lane. He meandered through the trees, reaching out to touch the leaves but finding his hand passed easily through them._

_“Angel?”_

_At the beautifully familiar voice behind him, Aziraphale turned with a noise of delight._

_“Crowley, dearest! How wonderful to have you in my dream!”_

_The demon was dressed the same as he had been before going to bed: black, silk pajamas with a little sleep mask pulled to the top of his head._

_“Your dream? I thought this was_ my _dream,” Crowley huffed._

_Aziraphale looked around, confused. “Are you certain? I’m aware that this is a dream, so I can’t simply be a figment of it.”_

_Crowley crossed his arms a little, not quite believing him._

_“Fine then. Tell me something you’ve never told me before so I know you’re not fake,” he stated._

_Aziraphale blushed prettily before settling on saying, “I still have that old Velvet Underground T-shirt that you gave me as a gag gift for Christmas a few years ago.”_

_Crowley’s arms fell. It was a strange thing to choose to admit to, but utterly believable. It was the real Aziraphale. Aziraphale straightened the collar of his tartan nightgown. “Now, if you would be so kind as to extend me the same courtesy so that we may finally settle this silly debate as to whose dream this is.”_

_“I don’t usually eat, but when I do, I like to wiggle the plate a little to pretend that it’s prey,” Crowley blurted._

_Aziraphale blinked once._

_“That makes sense, as well as explains a few things. Snakes don’t usually eat prey that isn’t moving at least a bit,” he acquiesced._

_Crowley was just glad his husband didn’t burst out laughing. Aziraphale sighed and folded his arms across his stomach. “Well. That settles the debate at least. Both of us are real.”_

_“Then whose dream is this?”_

_Both Crowley and Aziraphale fell silent. Neither was sure of the answer. Crowley, always one to think fast on his feet, elbowed Aziraphale in the side. “Hey. It doesn’t really matter whose dream it is. We can make a date of it!” He bent at the waist in a mock bow and said, “Would you be so gracious as to allow me to escort you to whence we met atop the Eastern Gate, o mighty Principality?”_

_Aziraphale giggled and allowed his hand to be taken._

_“I would love nothing more, dearest,”_

_The two of them ambled through the garden, stopping every so often to reminisce fondly between snatches of lazy conversation. When they reached the top of the wall after a brief flight upwards, however, somebody was already there._

_“Oh good lord!” yelped Aziraphale, staring into his own face._

_This dream version of himself was standing directly above the Eastern gate, eyes turned toward the horizon over the dunes. Aziraphale reached out a hand to his dream counterpart, but found him to be just as insubstantial as the rest of the dream._

_“This is eerie…” mumbled Crowley as he waved a hand directly in front of the doppelganger's face. “A memory maybe?”_

_Just as he said so, the faint sound of scales rasping over stone could be heard._

Crawley shed his skin into his human form, releasing his wings as he did so. He let them flutter free with a contented sigh.

“Well that was a job well done,” he smiled.

Aziraphale asked Crawley to repeat himself.

“I said ‘that was a job well done’,”

His grin stretched almost unnaturally wide and his eyes never left the angel’s beside him. Aziraphale’s smile fell instantly. “Wait...this whole mess...this was _your fault_?!” the angel practically shrieked, gesturing out at the two retreating figures in the distance.

Crawley didn’t say anything else, just continued staring, fangs glinting in the sunlight.

_“I...I don’t remember this part…” Crowley muttered, watching the scene unfold._

Aziraphale took a step back. The way that demon was looking at him sent shivers down his spine. His hand drifted to his scabbard, but closed around empty air.

_Oh, that’s right…_

Crawley was suddenly crowding into his personal space. He was so close that Aziraphale could practically count his eyelashes.

“Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” the demon purred.

Aziraphale opened and closed his mouth, unable to find the words. Crawley continued speaking, a hand closing around the angel’s wrist in a mockery of a gentle touch. Aziraphale winced at the unwelcome sensation. “You did. It was flaming like anything. What happened to it?”

Aziraphale tried to pull away, his breath coming in shallow puffs. Crawley leaned forward until his words ghosted over the shell of the other’s ear. “Lost is already, have you?”

It was barely a whisper.

_Crowley and Aziraphale watched, transfixed. This wasn’t a dream, or a memory. It was a nightmare. But whose?_

Aziraphale pressed his palm flat against the demon’s chest and pushed, but Crawley barely budged. He tightened his grip on Aziraphale’s wrist to a near crushing pressure and the angel dropped to his knees with a cry of pain. 

“Unhand me this instant!” he snapped.

“Oh I’m just getting started, _angel..."_

All at once a pillar of light burst into existence between Aziraphale and Crawley. Crawley released Aziraphale and jumped back with a pained hiss, bearing his fangs. When the light cleared, Gabriel stood before the downed Aziraphale, pointing his spear directly at the demon’s chest.

_“_ _Never thought I’d be happy to see_ **_that_ ** _wanker,” exhaled Crowley._

_His tone was light, but Aziraphale could sense the distress rolling off his husband in waves. The nightmare had clearly unsettled him. It was all Aziraphale could do to slip his hand in Crowley’s and give a reassuring squeeze._

“Begone from this place, Serpent!” Gabriel boomed.

Crawley chuckled, a dark, threatening thing.

“This isn’t over, _messenger._ My job up here is only just staring, and you can’t protect him forever,” his yellowed eyes landed on Aziraphale, who had managed to climb shakily to his feet. “I look forward to working with you, _personally.”_

Gabriel roared and stabbed downwards with his spear, but the tip of it only cracked the stone making up the walls of Eden. Crawley had shifted back into his serpent form and slithered to safety before either of the angels could stop him. All that was left behind was the lingering odor of sulfur.

_Aziraphale was thankful for dream-Gabriel’s timely intervention on his doppleganger’s behalf. Even Crowley, who normally detested the Archangel, nodded once in approval._

Gabriel banished his spear into the ether with a skillful flick of his wrist. Aziraphale came up behind him to wrap his arms around his chest and press his forehead between his broad shoulders.

“Thank you for the help, darling. That demon was planning to discorportate me, I just _know_ it!”

Gabriel twisted around in Aziraphale’s hold until he could cradle the smaller angel’s face in his hands. His violet eyes were blown wide with obvious concern.

“He didn’t, did he? Did he hurt you, Sunshine?”

“Just my wrist a little. But I’ll be fine,”

Gabriel pulled one hand away to lift the injured wrist to his face whereupon he pressed a soft kiss to the bruises starting to form. They were erased with a quick healing miracle.

“I’m _so sorry,_ Sunshine. I should have been here sooner. I know you were so _proud_ to be assigned to guard Eden, and I wanted to come see you work, but I got caught up in the paperwork for filing Adam and Eve’s banishment and...and I should have _been here!”_ Gabriel choked.

Aziraphale cupped his love’s face to turn it gently towards his own. “It’s alright, darling, you’re here _now_. Though...you might not want to be after I tell you what I did.”

Gabriel chuckled and shook his head.

“There’s _nothing_ you could say or do to make me want to leave your side,”

“I gave my sword away. To the humans,”

Gabriel went completely still. “You did _what?!”_

“I gave it away!”

Aziraphale fidgeted a little from where he was still bracketed by Gabriel’s strong arms. Gabriel took a second to get his thoughts back into working order.

Then he burst out laughing.

“Oh, Sunshine! I gotta say, that’s pretty bold of you!” he howled.

He gave Aziraphale a tight hug then pulled away to look at him again. “I can’t say Michael, Uriel, or Sandalphon will be pleased. But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

Gabriel winked and Aziraphale melted against his chest.

“Thank you, darling. I was quite worried about whether or not I did the right thing,”

Gabriel’s palms rubbed a soothing row up and down Aziraphale’s back.

“You’re my Sunshine. I don’t think you _can_ do the wrong thing,” he sighed, content.

“You sentimental old sap,” Aziraphale smiled.

He lifted his hand from where it had clung to the front of Gabriel’s lilac robe to brush through the soft hairs at the nape of the Archangel’s neck. Aziraphale gave one quick, coy smirk before pulling Gabriel’s head down towards his own and claiming his mouth in a searing, open-mouthed kiss.

Gabriel made a hungry noise from somewhere deep in the back of his throat and looped his arms around Aziraphale’s lower back, lifting him slightly off the wall from the intensity of his grip.

_Aziraphale was hardly aware of Crowley’s trembling hand in his own. He could only watch his counterpart and dream-Gabriel’s passionate embrace with a sort of mute horror._

_“Angel, I think I want to wake up now…” Crowley whimpered beside him._


	2. Cuneiform

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale continue their glimpse into Universe B and find that there MAY be more to Crowley-B (as they like to call him) than meets the eye.

**Heaven, Universe B, Before Time Existed**

Aziraphale wrenched his eyes away from the falling rebel.

“Wait! Please! Don’t leave me!!”

The Principality mentally blocked out the choked gurgling as the rebel’s beggin was cut off. Aziraphale charged Gabriel’s opponent, throwing himself bodily at her. The two of them went down in a pile of limbs, giving Gabriel the chance to leap back to his feet.

“Aziraphale! Get back! She’s a Power!” he screamed.

Aziraphale felt a bolt of fear run through him. Powers were, well, _powerful!_ One rank above Principalities, Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to match her for raw strength. Still, he gritted his teeth, planted his feet, and hefted his sword. The weight of it was a comforting, familiar presence in his hands. The flames danced in his eyes, casting his face in a radiant glow that had Gabriel briefly paralyzed with a feeling he didn’t yet have a name for.

“This is your first and only warning. Flee while you can,” Aziraphale snarled.

The Power twirled her own sword with a mocking laugh. “You really think you can take me on, Principality?”

Inwardly, Aziraphale knew he couldn’t. He’d most likely end up either run through or reduced to a smouldering heap on the floors of Heaven. At least he would go down fighting, however; _defending his home._

“I may not be as strong as you, but I am first and foremost a _guardian,”_ Aziraphale levelled his sword directly at his opponent’s heart. “You will go no further.”

The Power’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. She didn’t even say anything, just charged forward with a primal war-cry. She swung her weapon down towards Aziraphale’s face and he only barely managed to block the blow with the flat of his blade. That left him exposed, however, and the Power was able to bring her shield around to smash against his side.

Aziraphale howled as he felt his already taxed body bruise further under the impact and he went down, sword sliding out of his grasp. The Power chuckled and planted a booted foot right on his sternum.

“I’m going to enjoy watching you _pop…”_

Gabriel lunged with his spear, stabbing her through the calf. The Power shrieked in agony and the foot on Aziraphale’s chest lifted away. Gabriel pulled his weapon back, the tip of it stained with ichor.

“You filthy little _wretch!”_ the Power spat.

Her mighty wings beat the air, forcing Gabriel to open his own as a counterweight lest he be blown away. In the time it took him to do so, the rebel abandoned her weapons in favor of attempting to wrest Gabriel’s away from him. The Archangel could only struggle weakly as she gripped the spear and pressed down against it, forcing him to his knees.

“How do you think it will feel to be killed by your own weapon, _Archangel?”_ Her voice was vicious.

The Power suddenly sputtered as the tip of a sword, _her sword,_ plunged into her back and burst out from the center of her chest. She gasped in pain around the ichor bubbling up from her throat. Behind her, Aziraphale gripped the hilt of her sword, his eyes as blue and cold as ice.

“You tell me,” he whispered.

There was a beat of silence, then Aziraphale wrenched the blade free. The rebel’s eyes rolled back towards her head. Her body had completely dissolved to ash before it ever hit the ground. Gabriel was still kneeling and staring at the spot where she had dissolved. His mouth opened and closed around words that wouldn’t come.

“You...you just destroyed a _Power,”_ he mumbled.

Aziraphale, panting with exertion, extended a hand to help him up. Gabriel took it, and noticed his own trembling.

 _“We_ just destroyed a Power,” Aziraphale corrected.

He pulled Gabriel to his feet and gave him a shy smile. “I think we work rather well together, don’t you agree?”

That unnamable feeling in Gabriel’s chest was back.

***~*~*~*~*~***

**Mesopotamia, Universe B, 3200 BC,**

_“Angel, I think I want to wake up now…”_

_The scene shifted suddenly, melting away like swathes of smeared paint and turpentine down a canvas._

_“Oh thank goodness,” breathed Aziraphale, his free hand over his chest “I think we’re about to get our wish.”_

_Instead of returning to their own bed (and reality) this time the duo of Universe A found themselves standing in what appeared to be the living room of an ancient, red-brick house._

_“I remember this place!” gasped Aziraphale as he spun slowly to take in the sight. “I lived here for a time! This was just about when- If memory serves I should be- there!”_

Aziraphale was practically giddy with excitement. In his hands he held a flat, clay tablet with symbols carved into the surface. His fingertips ran across it, tracing the uneven texture with a near-reverence he usually reserved for the Almighty Herself.

 _“Remarkable._ The humans have _actually_ managed to invent a written language!” he breathed.

“Ahead of schedule, even,”

Aziraphale yelped, dropping the tablet. Before it could shatter on the ground, however, a hand snatched it out of the air to pass it back to him.

“Careful, Sunshine. This looked important to you,” Gabriel said with a teasing grin.

“Oh thank you, darling,” Aziraphale ( _gently!)_ placed the tablet on a short, wooden stool. “I’m surprised to see you here on Earth, but it’s a wonderful surprise nonetheless. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Can’t I just come down to visit my favorite Principality?” Gabriel asked, stooping over to kiss the top of his love’s curls.

_Crowley snarled._

Aziraphale returned with a peck of his own and a scoff. “I love you, darling, but you’re a _terrible_ liar. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you stopped by, but what’s the _real_ reason?”

Gabriel sighed.

“I meant what I said. I _did_ want to see you, but I was actually sent down to check on the status of human civilization. From what I’ve seen, however, it appears everything is going just fine,” The Archangel’s eyes then creased at the corners with a fond smile. “Am I to assume that it’s thanks to _you_?”

“Well, I don’t want to take _all_ the credit,” Aziraphale demurred.

“Speaking of credit, that demon from Eden hasn’t been bothering you, has he? I’ve been reading your reports and it seems like he’s become a bit more active lately,”

Aziraphale groaned. “Oh, don’t get me started on _Crawley!_ He hasn’t done much that I haven’t been able to thwart, but it’s frustrating regardless.”

“That’s nice, Sunshine. I’m proud of your abilities, but that wasn’t what I asked,” Gabriel angled his head to meet the Principality’s eyes as he placed a hand on the side of his face. “I asked if he was bothering _you,_ specifically. He hasn’t tried to hurt you again?”

Aziraphale leaned into the touch.

“No, darling, he hasn’t. He’s been keeping his distance,”

“That’s a relief. I can’t _stand_ the thought of you having to fight him alone while I’m stuck Upstairs. What if he uses Hellfire?” Gabriel worried.

“Then you sweep up my ashes and smite that demon to atoms in retaliation,” was Aziraphale’s reply.

Gabriel gripped the other angel’s arms.

“That’s not _funny,_ sunshine! I’m not just gonna, what, put you in a rubbish bin? I’d be _destroyed_ if I lost you,”

_Aziraphale “aww”ed at the sentiment, but when he caught sight of Crowley staring at him, flabbergasted, he warped the noise into a strangled cough_.

Gabriel was _desperate_ to make Aziraphale see how much he worried. What would he be without him? He’d be a Messenger with no Guardian! A yang with no yin! A fractured soul, tortured without its other half! He wasn’t as good with words as his mate was, however, and struggled to voice his feelings in an eloquent manner.

“Sunshine...without you...Heaven wouldn’t be heaven,” he said, rather lamely, in his opinion.

The answering coo from Aziraphale (both A _and_ B, though he only heard the latter) helped him believe that _maybe_ he wasn’t so bad at this “feelings” thing after all.

“Oh...come here you _darling_ thing, you!” Aziraphale sniffled.

The smaller angel practically flung himself at his partner and was, thankfully, caught in a pair of steady arms that held him like he weighed little more than air. “I hope you know that the feeling is _entirely_ mutual. When we’re apart, it feels like I’ll never be whole again; not until you’re back at my side.”

_“I feel the same way about you, my love,” Aziraphale gazed at his demon husband, trying with all his might to project the adoration he felt for him into something visible. “And I do hope this...nightmare isn’t making you doubt that. Because if it is, I’ll remind you_ every day _for the rest of eternity.”_

_Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand in his and kissed the back of it the way he would back during the balls and galas at the Versaille._

_“I know, angel. You’ve told me as much every day for the past 6,000 years,” he said._

_“And I’ll do it for 6,000 more,”_

Gabriel set Aziraphale down who promptly began recounting how _excited_ he was to be present for humanity’s foray into the written word.

“Perhaps they’ll discover _paper_ soon!” he gasped in delight.

“I’ll never understand your fascination with these...material objects the humans produce,” Gabriel lamented. “Why, I’ll bet you love those _objects_ more than me, even.” 

He said this while pretending to wipe away a tear and wearing the most pathetic look of rejection he could possibly come up with. 

“Oh _absolutely!”_ Aziraphale agreed. “‘Material objects’, as you call them, are nice and quiet and don’t accidentally tear my robes whenever we get a little amorous.”

_Crowley made a strange sound that was somewhere between a whine and a squawk._

Gabriel huffed in mock indignation.

“Fine then! I guess I’ll just take this, er…” He snatched up a reed basket. “...hat, was it? _Hat!_ Yes, I’ll just take this hat to be my new mate instead! She’s not too fussy and actually _laughs_ at my jokes.”

The two angels stared at each other.

Then burst into guffaws. Gabriel’s were loud enough to rattle a few chunks of brick loose from the ceiling. He set the “hat” back down and Aziraphale eagerly went into his open arms.

“I suppose I’ll just have to start competing with baskets now, will I?” the Principality snorted.

“Oh _that’s_ what my new nestmate is called!”

Aziraphale swatted the Archangel on his arm with a, _“This_ is why I don’t laugh at your jokes.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep lying to yourself, Sunshine. I’m _hilarious._ You just don’t want to admit it,”

_Crowley and Aziraphale watched the rest of the scene play out from their spot in the gap between Universe A and B. Aziraphale-B and Gabriel-B (as the angel and demon had taken to calling them) spent the rest of their time together just chatting about nothing and everything. When it came time for Gabriel to return to his duties in Heaven, he and Aziraphale shared one last kiss, then the Archangel was gone in a beam of light._

Aziraphale hummed as he leaned against the door to his house. His eyes were still trained at the sky, as if he could peer past the veil into Heaven. He sighed, slightly melancholy, and re-entered his home.

A very familiar, very _unwelcome_ demonic figure was lounging on a stool, scaly feet propped up on the table.

“Ugh, thought he’d _never_ leave,” groused Crawley.

He was holding Aziraphale’s cuneiform tablet with a disinterested air. The Principality barely suppressed the urge to unleash his wings to mantle over the demon.

“What are _you_ doing here, fiend?” he growled.

Crawley deigned not to answer him. He just continued turning the tablet over and over in his hands.

“You really ruined that temptation for me last week,” he said in a casual voice.

“ _You_ were trying to convince the village elder to skim a bit off of the taxes taken from the people!” the angel rebutted.

“So some poor sods end up paying a little more than what they should. So what?” Crawley scoffed and shrugged.

Aziraphale could only sputter in ill-concealed anger. Crawley swung his legs off the table to stand next to a wall across the room from the angel. All the while he did so, his eyes never once met Aziraphale’s. “Thanks to your ‘timely intervention’ I was passed over for a promotion in Hell. I could have had a title: Baron Crawley. _Instead_ I have to wait until my _next_ opportunity comes around.”

The demon tapped the tablet against the wall. “So I think I’ll take something of _yours_ in return. Just to make it even.”

_“I don’t like where this is going…” Crowley mumbled._

Before Aziraphale could stop him, Crawley swung the tablet against the wall. The force of the blow was enough to crack the wall a little, and shattered the tablet almost to dust. Crawley cackled at the angel’s cries of anguish.

_“Oh that...that..._ _**bad demon!”** Aziraphale declared. _

_“Oof. Yeah. That was a little too far. If_ **I** _wanted to get revenge_ _properly, I’d just steal all your left shoes,”_

 _“Is_ **_that_ ** _why I could find only my right slipper two days ago? And only my right loafer as well?”_

_“Ehhh…possibly,”_

_“CROWLEY!”_

Crawley took a step back to admire his handiwork. The angel was kneeling on the floor beside the crumbled remains of his _stupid_ little knickknack. Pale, gentle fingers combed through the mess as he fought back tears.

“Looks like you won’t be spreading or reading any more of that Heavenly propaganda bullshit,” Crawley grinned.

He marched to the front door, pleased with himself at a revenge plot well-enacted, when a soft sound caught his ear.

“It wasn’t propaganda…”

Crawley knew it would be a dumb idea to turn around. He knew that he risked painful, slow discorporation if he didn’t immediately take his leave. However…

...he always did enjoy an opportunity to gloat.

“What was it then? A dirty sonnet from that glorified mailman of an Archangel to his pet Principality?”

Aziraphale’s face hardened for a split second, before it was replaced by a look of loss.

“No, actually,” he sighed. “It was a gift. From one of the humans.”

Crawley just felt confused. “A dirty sonnet from some whoremonger then. Didn’t think you’d sell your body for just a bit of writing, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Aziraphale didn’t even react this time. He picked up two fragments of the ruined tablet and pressed them against each other like he was trying to fit together incompatible puzzle pieces.

“It was a poem,” he explained, voice wistful. “A girl in the village gave it to me. She was only 13 and set to be married to a much older man. I used a bit of angelic influence to convince her parents that they’d be better off waiting until she was quite a bit older, and she wrote me this poem as a thank you. I didn’t even get a chance to read it before...”

Aziraphale let the pieces tumble from his limp hands. He still wasn’t looking at the demon, eyes fixated instead on the wreckage of a gift given to him by a grateful child who had nothing else to give to the man-shaped being who had saved her from a lifetime of rape.

The sight of the angel nearly bent double in his sadness, made a strange tendril of _something_ curl around Crawley’s heart.

Crawley had felt guilt before. He felt it on the wall of Eden, despite his blustering to the contrary. He felt it whenever his temptations ended up doing more harm to the humans than he had intended. He’d even felt it when he accidentally stepped on a street cat’s tail and it yowled in pain.

Not once, however, had he felt guilt for an _angel._

Seeing his hated foe wracked with sorrow over something _Crawley_ had done (“Isn’t that a good thing?” his mind kept shrieking at him) was sparking that same gut-wrenching feeling he had come to associate with guilt.

He refused to acknowledge it as such, however. Heaven and its ilk had never done _anything_ for him. Every single feather-brained asshole was so blinded by their own halo they couldn’t see the suffering around them. Therefore, they didn’t _deserve_ Crawley’s guilt. _Aziraphale_ didn’t deserve it.

Then _why_ was he feeling it?!

“I mean...can’t you just miracle it back in one piece?” Crawley couldn’t stop himself from saying. “Isn’t that what your lot does? Fix broken things or whatever?”

Aziraphale turned to him with red-rimmed eyes. “You and I both know that’s not how it works. I can’t repair what’s broken if I don’t know how it was made in the first place. I don’t know how to make clay, so therefore I can’t fix a _clay_ tablet.”

Crawley was at a loss. _He_ knew how to make clay, but…

The demon was internally groaning in a pitch he was sure matched the resonance frequency of his very soul (if the weird, crumbly feeling in it was any indication). Then he snapped his fingers. With the quick application of a demonic miracle, Aziraphale’s clay fragments twisted in the air then reassembled themselves back into a perfectly repaired tablet. The angel was visibly startled, and he turned to Crawley with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Crawley could handle a _lot_ of torture, but the look Aziraphale was levelling at him was where he drew the line.

“I just did that so you wouldn’t flood this whole valley with your _stupid tears,”_ he spat. “I’ve still got a lot of humans to damn to Hell and I can’t have you washing them away before I do.”

He didn’t give Aziraphale the chance to say anything else, or even thank him, before he was stomping off with a parting jab of, “I hope you put that stupid tablet on a shelf, you bump into that shelf, and that useless slab falls on your head and cracks your skull!”

The angel just watched him go, a strange combination of gratitude and confusion swirling where loss had previously been.

_“Well...that was a thing,” said Crowley._


	3. The Ark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 200 years after the events of Chapter 2, Crowley-B and Aziraphale-B meet up again right at the beginning of a flood...

**Mesopotamia, Universe B, 3004 B.C.**

_ “Well, that was a thing,” said Crowley. _

_ And the universe shifted around them again. _

_ Aziraphale unconsciously scooted closer to his husband, who looped an arm around his back, an unintentional reflection of their first meeting so many millennia ago. _

_ This time, when the world righted itself, they were standing at the foot of a  _ **_massive_ ** _ wooden ship 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. The angel and demon recognized where they were almost immediately, and Crowley’s arm around his husband tightened at the same time Aziraphale clung to the other’s pajama front. _

**_Now_ ** _ what was happening? _

  
  


Aziraphale fiddled nervously with the ring on his pinkie - his halo - and glanced around as thunder rumbled overhead. The starch-white of his robes stood out against the muted browns of the humans around him in their handwoven, everyday clothes. He’d been corralled behind a waist-high fence along with them and could only helplessly stand there as they gossiped amongst themselves about the Ark before them.

So wrapped up was he in watching the various pairs of animals parade past that he didn’t notice the demonic presence creeping up behind him until it was standing right beside him.

“I hope you realize that the only reason I haven’t sliced you open from navel to throat is because I need information,” Crawley menaced. “Specifically about what’s going on here.”

“You must have hit your head pretty hard on the way Down when you Fell,” Aziraphale scoffed. “Otherwise, you’d know that I’d never tell you  _ anything  _ about the Great Plan.”

“Oh don’t be like  _ that,”  _ Crawley wheedled, leaning into the angel’s personal space. “You  _ owe me,  _ after all, for fixing your tablet two centuries ago. And an angel  _ always  _ repays its debts, doesn’t it?”

Aziraphale’s upper lip curled in a barely suppressed sneer. He wanted to smite Crawley straight back to Hell, but the demon had a point. As distasteful as the serpent was, he  _ had  _ done Aziraphale a favor and was thus owed one in return.

“Well if you  _ must  _ know, the humans of this region have become rather… sinful, as of late. The Almighty’s decided to wipe the slate clean and start over. A  _ tabula rasa  _ as it were,” Azirphale answered apprehensively. Crawley frowned at him.

_ “All of them?!  _ Even the  _ kids?!  _ You can’t kill  _ kids!”  _ the demon objected, internally cursing everything related to Heaven and its ilk;  _ Including  _ the angel beside him.

“You think I don’t  _ know that?!”  _ Aziraphale snapped suddenly. He shot Crawley a sharp look and the demon found himself taking a step back. Aziraphale waved at the Ark, where Crawley could make out the vague shape of a towering, purple-dressed figure arguing with a shorter, older human. “At this very moment, Gabriel is trying to negotiate with Noah to allow for more humans aboard the Ark.”

_ “Really?  _ **_Gabriel_ ** _ of all angels is trying to change how The Flood is going to go?” Crowley said with disbelief. _

_ Aziraphale quirked a small smile. “It  _ **_is_ ** _ strange, isn’t it? He hadn’t even been on Earth at the time.” _

  
  


“Why  _ is  _ that big boat there, anyway?” Crawley asked.

“It’s going to be a big flood,” Aziraphale said sadly, turning his attention to where a few of Noah’s sons were carrying supplies up a ramp onto the Ark.

“I suppose the ones who  _ built  _ that thing are going to be saved. Am I right?”

Aziraphale’s sorrowful eyes flickered to Crawley’s outraged ones. “You are correct in your assumption. Noah and his family will be spared, while the rest will be left to drown.”

“And you’re just  _ standing here  _ and letting this happen?!” Crawley exclaimed, swinging out with his hand and gesturing wildly at the surrounding commotion.

The angel’s face was as thunderous as the sky overhead, before falling back into a defeated expression. “I  _ can’t  _ interfere with Divine Plans, Crawley. Quite  _ literally,  _ I’m afraid.”

“What’s  _ that  _ supposed to mean?”

“It’s a failsafe,” Aziraphale replied. His face was now tainted with resignation. “After you and your…  _ friends  _ Rebelled, The Almighty ensured disobedience could never happen again. She stripped away our Free Will in regards to protesting Heaven’s Mandates, but was gracious enough to allow us to keep it in all other matters, such as choosing mates or expressing certain individuality. So long as we don’t step out of line, we’re as ‘free’ as we need.”

  
  


_ Crowley stared at his husband beside him, both of them in a daze. “Angel, that’sssss… that’s didn’t happen to you, did it?” _

_ “No,” Aziraphale whimpered, shaking his head. “Nothing like that happened after you Fell. To have your Free Will peeled away like that… I can’t even imagine the pain.” _

  
  


Crawley’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open in a shocked “O”-shape. In his defense, it had been some time since last he’d been to Heaven, but he hadn’t thought that things had gone  _ that  _ badly after the Rebellion. He took in the sight of Aziraphale’s slumped posture and something  _ angry  _ welled up within him.

How  _ dare  _ She?! 

It wasn’t enough to simply fling the Rebels (Crawley included) from the  _ literal highest point in existence,  _ but She  _ also  _ performed the Ethereal equivalent of a frontal lobotomy on the ones that had stayed loyal! 

Crawley’s reptilian brain registered Aziraphale’s last sentence and the demon hissed out a sarcastic, “How  _ kind.” _

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something, no doubt in defense of his “just” Creator, when there came the sound of a horse’s whinny and a white mare with an iridescent horn directly in the middle of her forehead broke loose from her handler and went galloping away.

_ “Oi! Shem!  _ That unicorn’s gonna make a run for it!” Crawley shouted, pointing. When it became clear that no one would be able to re-capture it, the demon gave a disinterested shrug of his shoulders and turned to Aziraphale with a teasing smirk. “Ah, it’s too late. At least they’ve still got one of them.”

“Erm, Crawley… you  _ do  _ know why  _ two  _ were needed, right?”

“Wha-? I…  _ yes!”  _ Crawley grumbled. “It’s for- they’re- you see-  _ agh!” _

  
  


_ Aziraphale snorted loudly, and ignored the glare he got from his husband. “Methinks Crowley-B doesn’t know where babies come from,” he giggled. _

_ “It wasn’t just Crowley-B,” Crowley-A admitted. “Up until 2,500 B.C., I thought everything reproduced like sponges.” _

_ The angel gasp-laughed, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “‘Sponges’?!” _

_ “Yeah, you know? A little piece breaks off from the big piece and then that little piece becomes an adult sponge!” _

_ “Isn’t that starfish?” _

_ “No, you’re thinking bacteria…” _

  
  


Crawley suddenly seized the front of Aziraphale’s robes and shoved the angel roughly backwards, sending him stumbling into the crowd of gathered humans. The blond quickly straightened back out, but when he looked up, his nemesis was nowhere to be seen.

“You’d better not do anything to that Ark!” Aziraphale shouted angrily into the air. He wasn’t sure if Crawley was around to hear it or not, but it never hurt to try. “I’ve placed so many Blessings on that thing that you wouldn’t be able to put a  _ scratch  _ on it!”

***~*~*~*~***

Hours later, Aziraphale stood on the deck of the Ark beside his mate, shielding the Archangel with his wing against the storm.[1]

“I’m sorry, sunshine. I tried, but…” Gabriel sighed, staring down at the grainy wood beneath his sandals.

_ “Why,  _ though?” Aziraphale asked. “You  _ know  _ we can’t disobey or interfere or deviate or what have you. So what were you hoping to accomplish?”

“I thought that maybe if I could convince  _ Noah  _ that it was God’s will that more people be allowed aboard it would somehow… I don’t know… maybe  _ he  _ could change things.  _ I  _ wouldn’t be the one interfering, technically, if  _ Noah  _ decided to let more people on,” the Archangel admitted.

Aziraphale looked at him for a long moment. “That still doesn’t completely answer my question. You like humans as a whole, certainly, but you don’t care for them individually. Humanity will still go on after this flood has receded, so why try to interfere with the Great Plan?”

“I didn’t do it for  _ them,”  _ Gabriel said.

Aziraphale’s breathing hitched slightly. He didn’t need to hear anything else. He smiled, “Thank you, darling, for trying.”

“I have to return to Heaven soon. I’m so sorry that you have to be stuck down here  _ alone _ until this is over,” Gabriel sighed.

“I’ll be alright,” Aziraphale replied. He patted the other angel’s muscular arm. “Noah’s family is an agreeable sort and can keep me company just fine.”

He tugged lightly on Gabriel’s elbow, pulling him towards the trap door leading below deck. “Come. Help me do one more headcount.”

“ _ Ohhh,  _ ‘headcount’.  _ That’s  _ what you’re calling it now,” Gabriel said teasingly, letting himself be led into the bowels of the Ark.

Aziraphale glared with no real heat behind it. “That joke doesn’t even make sense!”

Gabriel gave a bark of laughter. “Maybe, but there’s potential for it, I can tell. Something about heads and Efforts… give me a second, I’ll come up with something…”

Aziraphale left his mate standing there, trying to puzzle out his silly wordplay, and moved further down the hall towards where some of the other animals were kept. As he passed the holding stall that  _ used  _ to contain two unicorns, he spotted a door that  _ hadn’t  _ been in the original schematics. The Principality ran his hands along the grain of the wood, which tingled faintly with the lingering traces of demonic magic.

To his horror, Aziraphale realized that Crawley had  _ somehow  _ managed to bypass the angelic Blessings. 

Aziraphale had no sword to summon any longer, but that didn’t stop him from snatching a hammer meant for repairing leaks off the wall and forcing open the door with a slight Miracle. He’d briefly considered going back and fetching Gabriel, but the truth off the matter was that Aziraphale didn’t want to waste a single  _ second.  _ Crawley could be performing any  _ number  _ of nefarious deeds and, as Earth’s sole Heavenly Representative, Aziraphale had an obligation to thwart.

  
  


_ “That door looks awfully familiar,” Crowley remarked. “Didn’t I make that one when…” _

_ “Oh dear…” _

  
  


Aziraphale hurried down the narrow corridor that  _ reeked  _ of demonic intervention. It felt like the very walls around him had been crafted with pure spite and malice.

_ How  _ had Crawley managed to miracle up an entirely new section of the Ark without anyone noticing?!

Aziraphale had no time to bother looking for answers.

He came out the other end of the hallway into a hidden room and felt all the superfluous air punched out of his unnecessary lungs.

Children.

_ Dozens  _ of them.

Not a one appeared to be over sixteen, and they were all curled up in piles around the room, miracled to sleep through anything.

“What on Earth-”

Something black-clad and  _ angry  _ slammed into Aziraphale, knocking him to the ground and sending his hammer sliding away.

The angel felt a heavy weight pinning him to the floor, and he stared up into golden-yellow eyes blazing with fury.

“If you think I’m going to let you throw thessse innocents overboard, you’ve got another thing coming, you feathery prick!” Crawley hissed, bringing his face close enough to where Aziraphale could see venom dribbling down his fangs to bead at the tips.

“Aziraphale? Sunshine? Are you okay? I heard a thump…”

Gabriel’s voice echoed from outside the hidden door, and Crawley’s head jerked up towards the sound of it. From his position beneath the demon, Aziraphale could see that Crawley’s eyes had widened slightly in true fear; not for himself, but for his charges.

“I just dropped a hammer, Gabriel, nothing to worry about!” Aziraphale shouted back.

Crawley gaped down at him, not even bothering to hide the open  _ shock  _ on his face.

“Alright, then! I finally figured out the joke, so now I’m going to go count the birds!”

“You go do that! I’ll be there in a moment! Let me finish tidying up here!”

Aziraphale and Crawley both fell silent, listening to Gabriel’s footsteps retreat. Once he was gone, Crawley released his vice-grip on Aziraphale’s wrists, sitting back on the prone angel’s lap.

“You… why did you do that?” the demon whispered with a voice akin to awe.

Aziraphale propped himself up slightly on his elbows. His eyes bored stubbornly into Crawley’s.

“‘You can’t kill kids’,” the angel said, giving his foe a smile that was trying to appear smug, but came out more grateful than he had intended. He came back to himself and cleared his throat. “Besides, it just means  _ you  _ owe  _ me  _ now.”

Something in Crawley’s face hardened. His brow furrowed and his mouth turned down into a snarl.

“Of  _ courssse!  _ Why did I think you’d help me out for  _ any  _ other reassson than to have a demon at your mercy?” he hissed, climbing off of Aziraphale.

With a sound like pulling apart a piece of leather, Crawley shifted into a small, barely-a-handful garter snake and slithered into a crack in the wall. Though Aziraphale could no longer see him, the angel had no doubts that Crawley was simply watching him from the shadows, to see if he’d uphold his end of the deal.

Aziraphale climbed off the floor and dusted a bit of errant hay off his robe before striding purposely out of the room, even going so far as to miracle the door on his way out invisible to all but him and Crawley.

  
  


_ “Something’s just occurred to me…” Crowley mused, folding his arms across his chest. _

_ Aziraphale gave a curious smile. “Do tell.” _

_ His husband shook his head slowly, like he was struggling to work something out. “Me-B asked You-B what the Ark was for. However… he also knew who Shem was.” _

_ “You’re  _ **_right,”_ ** _ Aziraphale breathed, eyebrows arching in realization. “Why do you think he lied about not knowing what was going on?” _

**_“I_ ** _ did it so I’d have an excuse to talk to the pretty angel standing there,” Crowley grinned, taking the other man’s hand in his. “Maybe Me-B was thinking the same thing?” _

_ Aziraphale’s heart clenched for his doppleganger. _

_ “Doubtful. You-B doesn’t look like he can  _ **_stand_ ** _ Me-B…” _

***~*~*~*~***

1Gabriel was quite a bit taller and had to crouch a little to compensate.[return to text]


	4. Alone in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale-B fails to stop Crowley-B from completing his greatest temptation yet and ends up at the demon's mercy.
> 
> (CW: For claustrophobia and fear of the dark)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Rings have always existed, but it was during Ancient Egypt that they started being worn as a symbol for marriage.

**Egypt, Universe B, 2560 B.C.**

Aziraphale hadn’t seen Crawley in roughly four centuries (not since that Ark business) and the angel could  _ not  _ be happier for it. Despite this, however, Crawley’s Hellish influence could still be felt throughout the world, even if the demon himself never showed his horrible, scaly face. Aziraphale managed to track him down to Egypt, where he’d discovered that Crawley had been whispering influential words into the ears of the current Pharoah, Khufu, suggesting that he build a great tomb to mark himself as higher than all.

By the time Aziraphale had arrived to stop him, construction on the pyramid had already been completed, and Crawley had already been given his Commendation and the promotion to “Baron” that he’d been thwarted out of six-hundred years prior. 

As the angel stood at the base of the great Akhet Khufu, his heart ached at the thought that he’d been unable to save the Pharaoh's soul from the damning sin of Pride.

_ “Marvelousss,  _ isn’t it?” Crawley hissed, coming to stand beside his hated rival. “I think this might be my  _ finest  _ work yet.”

Aziraphale didn’t turn to look at him, but did glance out of the corner of his eye.

His time in the royal court had obviously been treating Crawley well, if his jewelry of silver and lapis lazuli was any indication. The demon had his hair styled in a tight braid over his shoulder, and his chest had been tanned considerably by the scorching desert sun. In a word, he looked right at home.

Aziraphale, bare for everything except a linen shanti and leather sandals, looked comparatively shabby.

“As  _ disgusted  _ as I am by the blatant show of vanity…” his eyes flickered back to the pyramid. “...I must admit that the craftsmanship is impressive.”

The Akhet Khufu towered above them at 146 metres, the powder-white of the limestone covering gleaming in the sun as surely as polished bronze. 

It made Aziraphale feel quite small…

Crawley yawned and stretched his arms over his head, cracking his excess vertebrae. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve earned myself a well-deserved nap after all the tempting. I  _ guess  _ you could go try and ‘save some souls’ or whatever it is you self-righteous knobs tend to when I’m busy. Although… I doubt  _ you  _ will succeed. Maybe if you had your ‘feather-daddy’ with you…”

Crawley cackled and jumped out of the way of Aziraphale’s angry, clumsy swing. In the blink of an eye, the demon dropped to the ground, shifting into metre-and-a-half-long black cobra. Aziraphale readied himself to feel the sting of fangs sinking into his ankle, but Crawley simply darted away, making a noise that sounded vaguely like hissing laughter.

  
  


_ “‘Feather-daddy’?  _ **_Really,_ ** _ Me-B?” _

_ “I suppose terrible wordplay is the same for all Crowley’s no matter  _ **_which_ ** _ universe they’re from,” Aziraphale sighed, clasping his hands over his stomach. _

_ Crowley stared at him in visible confusion. “‘Universe’? What are you talking about?” _

_ Aziraphale grinned. “Well, see, I’ve been giving this ‘dream’ some thought, and what if…” _

***~*~*~*~***

Aziraphale padded solemnly through the bustling streets of Inebu-hedj. All around him were the lively sounds of human activity, but he didn’t notice any of it.

After Crawley’s earlier boasting, Aziraphale had found himself somewhat in a sour mood. He was just about to turn back around and give that serpent what-for, when he caught the faint scent of lavender on the wind. Following his nose, he picked his way through the crowd towards the marketplace.

His heart kicked up it’s beat when he got closer to the source and spotted Gabriel, his towering form bent practically in half to converse with a small, old woman. Aziraphale couldn’t make out the words, but the two of them appeared to be haggling over the price of something. The smaller angel watched from the distance as Gabriel finally rolled his eyes, then placed a few pieces of copper on a small scale. When both sides were even, the old woman grinned toothlessly up at him and handed the Archangel two leather circles, barely an inch in diameter each.

Gabriel thanked the woman with an acknowledging bow of his head. When he straightened up, he caught sight of Aziraphale and nearly jumped clean out of his skin.

“For Mother’s  _ sake!”  _ he gasped, coming to stand before him. “If you wanted a divorce, there’s easier ways of going about getting it than discorporating me!”

Aziraphale brushed off the joke and eyed the leather pieces in his mate’s hand. “What have you got there?”

“Oh! The humans are starting to use  _ rings  _ as symbols of marriage! I was thinking that we could wear… um…” Gabriel’s nervous words sputtered out at the sight of Aziraphale’s slack-jawed countenance. “It’s a dumb idea, isn’t it?”

By way of answer, the blond snatched the smaller leather ring out of his mate’s hand and slipped it onto his left ring finger, right next to the Halo around his pinkie. Gabriel’s smile grew steadily wider as Aziraphale took the other ring to slide it onto the Archangel’s left hand as well. When that was done, Aziraphale flung himself at Gabriel who had to spare a quick frivolous miracle to ensure that none of the humans around them noticed the downright  _ obscene  _ kiss that followed.

  
  


_ Crowley and Aziraphale covered each others’ eyes. _

  
  


“I  _ love them,  _ darling!” Aziraphale panted when they broke apart. Even though they’d already been the Heavenly equivalent of married since before time began, the thought that Gabriel was willing to follow a silly  _ human  _ tradition to make him happy had Aziraphale feeling all sorts of giddy. He let it show in a wiggle of his shoulders as he eyed the simple leather band appreciatively. “Humans are  _ frightfully  _ clever, don’t you think?”

“For a bunch of monkeys with anxiety, certainly,” Gabriel chuckled dryly. The other angel smacked him in the chest.

“Bite your tongue!” he scolded. “I’m fairly certain that exact same statement is what got Lucifer booted out in the first place!”

  
  


_ “Was that really what happened?” Aziraphale asked. _

_ “Ah- hm- I-” the demon stuttered. Then he mumbled, “There were more words than just  _ **_that!”_ **

  
  


“It was quite a bit more than that,” Gabriel responded, looping his arm through Aziraphale’s and beginning to walk. “If I recall correctly, there was a certain fearsome Principality who took a pretty active role in the proceedings.”

“Hm, yes. And as  _ I  _ recall, there was a certain Archangel who was somehow managing to lose a fight against a lower-ranked angel and needed said Principality to come to his rescue,” Aziraphale replied, grinning.

His mate -  _ husband  _ \- gave him a sickly sweet smile that had the demon watching from between worlds gagging with nausea. “That’s why I gave you the Earth job, sunshine. Nobody could handle it better than you.”

“Ah… er… about that…” Aziraphale mumbled. Gabriel frowned slightly.

“Are you alright?” he asked. Aziraphale’s answering silence clearly worried him greatly. 

The Principality froze for a split second. Gabriel may have been his mate, sure, but he was also still his boss. Would Gabriel be disappointed in him for failing to prevent Crawley’s greatest temptation yet? The thought  _ alone  _ had Aziraphale’s chest clenching in anxiety. Perhaps it would be best if he didn’t mention it at all...

Then he remembered the Vows they had spoken to each other so long ago during their Joining; Vows about how they would always be open and honest with each other, how they would protect and  _ love  _ each other, no matter what! The anxiety in Aziraphale’s chest unknotted, but was quickly replaced by a leaden ball of guilt for even  _ considering  _ lying to the only being in existence who loved him unconditionally.

“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” he sighed, turning his eyes to his husband. “I failed to thwart Crawley this time around. He managed to successfully tempt Pharaoh Khufu into constructing that  _ ghastly  _ monument.” He gestured defeatedly to the distance where the tip of the Akhet Khufu could be seen jutting up from the flat expanse of the desert.

“What, you mean the ‘Great Pyramid of Giza’?” Gabriel asked and smiled.

Aziraphale’s face shifted from shame to bafflement.

“That’s… that’s not what it’s called,” he mumbled, confused, a whole host of questions swirling in his mind.

“It  _ will be,  _ though!” Gabriel replied with a proud grin. He slipped his arm around Aziraphale and hugged him to his side, pointing out to the distance. “We’d gotten wind about your nemesis’s plan about fifteen Earth years ago. At first, I was going to send you to take care of it, but then the other Archangels and I had an idea: what if we  _ let  _ it happen? Think about it, sunshine! This pyramid is a true  _ marvel  _ of human engineering! If we could protect it, keep it standing, then it could motivate  _ countless  _ humans over the centuries to other great feats! Why, it could even inspire awe and  _ wonder!  _ In fact, Heaven has plans to make it one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Ancient World’! Catchy isn’t it?”

“You… you wanted me to fail?” Aziraphale gasped, backing away. He didn’t know what he was feeling, beyond numb shock and betrayal. He half expected to look down and see the ground crumbling beneath his feet.

  
  


_ “That smarmy little  _ **_fuck!”_ ** _ Crowley snapped angrily. _

  
  


“What? ‘Fail’?  _ No,  _ sunshine! You didn’t  _ fail!”  _ Gabriel exclaimed, his amethyst eyes flicking up and down Aziraphale’s form, observing the way he seemed to tuck into himself. “You did  _ nothing  _ wrong!”

“Then explain why I feel like I did!” the smaller angel demanded, taking another step back. Gabriel watched him do so, his smile falling. “Or better yet, explain why I feel like I was  _ used!” _

The Archangel flinched at the  _ harshness  _ in that last word.

“Aziraphale, it’s not what you think!” he protested, moving to close the distance between them. “I didn’t ‘use’ you! Why do you think you didn’t have many major Assignments? I thought I’d give you a break and just… not tell you what The Opposition was up to.” He winced as the belated realization that  _ maybe  _ that had been a bad idea sunk down over his shoulders.

  
  


_ Aziraphale gasped softly. “Oh no…  _ **_this_ ** _ Gabriel’s an even bigger idiot than ours…” _

  
  


Aziraphale-B’s mind seemed to be running on the same parallels as his unseen Universe-A counterpart. “You didn’t think it would be  _ prudent  _ to let me know this? That we  _ wanted  _ Crawley to succeed? For goodness’s sake, Gabriel, I showed up here thinking I’d let everybody down, only to find out that this was all part of the Great Plan and that I was  _ supposed  _ to not interfere! Do you know how  _ humiliating  _ this feels?!”

“Aziraphale, I… I’m so sorry,” Gabriel said, reaching out a hand. “I… I didn’t  _ think  _ and-”

Aziraphale shook his head in disbelief, muttering angrily to himself. Then he snorted and crossed his arms stubbornly. “I appreciate you wanting to give me a break, but you went about it in the  _ worst  _ possible way. I’m rather upset with you and I think I’d prefer to be alone for a bit.”

“A… alone?” Gabriel intoned, sounding as if he were on the verge of heartbreak.

Aziraphale softened a little, though it still didn’t quite quell the indignation he felt. Against his better judgement, he reached up a hand to gently caress his husband’s lightly stubbled cheek.

“Not forever. Just for a bit. All I need is some time to cool down,”

Gabriel turned his face a little so he could press a kiss to the calloused palm on his face.

“I  _ am  _ sorry, sunshine,” he emphasized. “I  _ never  _ wanted to make you feel like you were anything less than perfect.”

Aziraphale smiled, despite himself.

***~*~*~*~***

Later, Aziraphale stood outside the doorway to the Akhet Khufu. A pair of Royal Guards stood vigil outside the doors, making entry impossible for all - save a curious angel with a concealing miracle. 

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and slipped past the guards without so much as them giving a glance in his direction.

_ I suppose I should see what all the fuss is about,  _ he thought to himself.

As he crossed over the threshold, he felt a shudder creep up his spine.

It was completely dark inside, the only light to be found from the sunlight trickling in through the door. The walls were rough-hewn, and when Aziraphale ran his fingers along it to orient himself, he felt his fingers tingle - a telltale sign of non-Heavenly magic.

Through the dim light, he squinted to read the sigils carved into the stone. They were hieroglyphics calling on the Gods of the Underworld to deliver protection on the pharaoh's journey to the Afterlife. A few of them were even curses, promising dire harm to whomever disturbed this tomb.

Though his time spent in Egypt had thus far been brief, Aziraphale knew that curses were not  _ commonly  _ used, so he could realistically attribute such foulness to one individual in particular. The angel brushed his fingertips across one such carving and his hand came away feeling like he’d just experienced a brief static shock.

Sure enough, they had been carved by Crawley.

“Let there be light,” Aziraphale whispered.

He snapped his fingers a second time and conjured a small glowing ball of Heavenly light to hover in his open palm. It sputtered briefly; with so much demonic and polytheistic magic thrumming through the air, it was nothing short of a  _ literal  _ miracle that the light had appeared at all.

Aziraphale lifted it higher.

Further in, he could see that the corridor began angling downwards, further into the bowels of the pyramid. 

_ Just how far down does this  _ **_go?,_ ** he asked himself.

He followed the length of the hallway, until the sunlight near the entrance disappeared. He would have been swallowed up wholly by darkness were it not for his summoned light. 

Unfortunately, however, he hardly noticed the light beginning to dim the further in he walked, slowly being smothered beneath the weight of demonic enchantments.

  
  


_ “Oh that poor dear…” Aziraphale mumbled worriedly, watching the light begin to go out. “I do hope he turns back soon.” _

_ Crowley started jumping and waving in the vague hopes that somehow his husband’s doppelganger would be able to notice. “Oi, mate! Turn around! You’re gonna get-” _

  
  


With a sound like a dying breath, the angel’s light went out, plunging him into impenetrable gloom.

  
  


_ “-lost.” _

  
  


***~*~*~*~***

Crawley snorted awake.

He tightened his coils further and tried to bury himself deeper into the warm sand to resume his snaky nap, but something was tugging at the edge of his consciousness - like the feeling he’d forgotten something  _ important,  _ but couldn’t remember  _ what. _

The feeling only intensified as the seconds ticked by, and then he was able to recognize it.

_ Someone  _ was fiddling with his runes!

Crawley growled and popped back into his (mostly) human form, sending up a spray of sand around him as he erupted from the ground.

“That little  _ bassstard!”  _ he hissed.  _ Must  _ the angel  _ always  _ interfere with his business? Couldn’t Crawley just have a simple, peaceful nap without having to go and do his  _ own  _ version of angelic thwarting?! His chest felt heavy with frustration and bubbling anger.

No more Mr. Nice Noodle!

Crawley followed the sensation of interference all the way back to the Akhet Khufu, whereupon the guards greeted him with acknowledging bows.

“Vizier, to what do we owe the honor of your visit today?” one of them asked.

Crawley locked eyes with the man, inwardly rejoicing at the flinch he received in response. It had been child’s play to con his way into the rank of nobility - his serpentine eyes had lended him some clout when he claimed to be a representative of the Gods. He leaned into his hissing a little.

“Jussst running a quick lassst-minute inssspection,”

The guards waved him through and Crawley entered the stillness of the pyramid, fully intent on rending the wings from an angel’s back.

***~*~*~*~***

Gabriel twisted the ring round and round on his finger, a habit he’d subconsciously picked up from watching Aziraphale do the same with his Halo. 

The Archangel strolled up and down the streets, not really looking for anyone or anything - simply walking to burn off his excess, pent-up energy.

He knew.

He knew he’d made a mistake.

It didn’t matter that said mistake was born from the noblest intentions, he’d still ended up hurting his sunshine. That  _ alone  _ was worth a Fall, in his opinion.

Gabriel leaned against a mud-brick building with a sigh. Aziraphale had wanted some time to himself, and Gabriel would respect that, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spend some time trying to come up with a way to make it up to him…

Any ideas he would have come up with were instantly driven out of his head when he felt a sudden spike of  _ fear  _ rip through his and Aziraphale’s shared Joining Bond.

_ “Aziraphale!”  _ he gasped, jerking upright.

Something was  _ very  _ wrong!

***~*~*~*~***

In the suffocating darkness of the tomb, Aziraphale had to stifle a whimper of fear.

He snapped his fingers. “L-let there b-b-be light.”

Nothing.

He tried again.

Nothing.

He began snapping frantically, the  _ tap-tap  _ of it almost deafening in the silence.

It was no use; the power of the demonic sigils kept interfering with his angelic abilities.

  
  


_ “Let there be light!” cried Aziraphale, snapping his own fingers. _

_ The result was much the same. _

  
  


Aziraphale gave a wobbly smile and clasped his hands together to keep them from trembling. He felt vaguely like he was about to be sick.

“It’s n-no bother,” he said to himself. “Just… just simply need to retrace my steps, that’s all. Can’t really get lost when you walk in a straight line, can you?”

Only… he couldn’t quite remember which direction he had come from.

He extended his arms and pressed his palms to the opposite walls, like he was holding up 6 million tonnes of stone with his bare hands. To his horror, he couldn’t tell if he was facing further  _ in,  _ or towards the  _ exit. _

His superfluous heart began pounding a thunderous tempo, and he couldn’t even miracle it silent. His breathing came in fast, shallow puffs that whistled between his clenched teeth and dragged out feeble noises.

He was alone, in the dark, with nothing but the sounds of his own heartbeat in his ears and over a hundred metres of rock directly overhead.

Pinning him.

Silencing him.

_ Trapping  _ him.

Aziraphale lost his grip on his panic and crouched to the floor, his knuckles pressed to the sides of his head.

Who  _ knew  _ how long he’d be stuck here?! With the sigils blocking his miracles, he couldn’t even teleport to safety! What if he tried to move towards the exit, but only ended up further in? More  _ lost?! _

Aziraphale’s strength gave out and he slumped against a wall, legs curled up to his chest in a pathetic attempt at comforting himself.

He keened into the darkness.

***~*~*~*~***

Crawley prowled deeper into the corridor, raking his claws against the stone walls as he went. His mouth was  _ filled  _ with the scent of distressed angel, and it was sweeter than the finest wine. Crawley had no need for light, miracled or otherwise; His eyes served him as well in the dark as they did in the day.

He let out a throaty chuckle as the smell of  _ angel  _ grew stronger.

***~*~*~*~***

Gabriel ran through the outskirts of the city, shouting at the top of his powerful lungs (they had to be when you were destined to blow the horn signalling Armageddon).

_ “Aziraphale! Sunshine! Answer me!” _

The feeling of fear only increased and Gabriel was growing desperate. He fanned out his ethereal senses, searching for the signature of his husband’s Grace. He felt it glimmering to the west, but it was muted and muffled, as if seen through a frosted lens, making its exact location hard to pin down.

There was  _ something  _ in the area that was dulling his senses, something  _ big  _ with a demonic signature...

His eyes snapped open in realization.

_ The pyramid! _

***~*~*~*~***

Crawley ran his tongue over a fang. He’d learned a delectable recipe for Hellfire-Seared Angel Wings while hanging around the Third Circle and was wondering if it would be worth the effort to drag the feathery appendages Downstairs with him after he’d ripped them-

Crawley’s thoughts ground to a stuttering halt when he finally spotted Aziraphale.

The Principality was scrunched into as small of a lump as he could reasonably go, with his arms wrapped around his legs and face buried in his knees hard enough to bruise the bone around his eyes. His shoulders were wracked with tremors and the demon could make out a few whispered words, namely, “please”, “alone”, and “scared”.

Crawley held up his claws and cleared his throat pointedly. Proper strategy would dictate that he strike now, while his opponent was distracted, but, well…

Even Crawley wasn’t so evil as to attack an angel  _ unawares.  _ That simply wasn’t  _ sporting.  _

At least, that’s what he told himself as he slowly approached.

“A-HA! I see I’ve caught you trying to undo all my hard work!” Crawley declared, in what he hoped sounded like a suitably menacing tone. “Stand up and face me like a Seraph!”

Aziraphale, however, didn’t seem to even  _ notice  _ him. The angel simply interrupted his own stream of words with a single whine before picking them up again. Crawley retracted his claws and let his hands fall to his side. Experimentally, he reached out with a sandaled foot to nudge at the heavenly being with the tip of a toe.

Aziraphale tipped over with a wail before scrambling into something of an upright kneel. His eyes blindly darted around, but it was clear that he still wasn’t  _ present. _

Crawley tried to dredge up a properly vicious word for his foe’s state. Pathetic, pitiful, wretched, childish, any one of them would suffice. Instead, the only one that leapt to mind was…

...heartbreaking.

Crawley went down on one knee in front of the trembling angel and reached out to him. When his palm made contact with the other being’s shoulder, Aziraphale shrieked and scrambled backwards, pressing himself against the wall as if he were attempting to tunnel through it via sheer force of will.

“Wh-who’s there?!” he demanded, voice trembling harder than his shoulders.

“It’s  _ me,  _ angel,” Crawley said. He’d called Aziraphale ‘angel’ countless times, usually as a harsh reminder about who and what the two of them were. This time, however, the word was tender, almost comforting, with no trace of fire or venom to be found. Crawley would examine why at a later date, but at the moment all he could think of was calming Aziraphale down.

His other hand came to rest on Aziraphale’s bicep, and the angel gave a weak squirm to try and get away. “Get… get  _ back,  _ fiend, or I’ll… I’ll…”

Crawley chuckled and shook his head.

“I’m just trying to  _ help you,  _ okay?” he said, pulling Aziraphale into a standing position. “There’s no fun in fighting you if you're too panicked to really put an effort into it. I’ll get you out of here.”

Crawley could see Aziraphale blink in surprise. The angel then glared at him. “How do I know you won’t simply lure me further in to discorporate me there?”

“You don’t,” Crawley admitted with a shrug. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

The demon fully expected to be shoved away. Or worse, smote. Therefore, he was extremely surprised when Aziraphale scooted closer to him to cling to his arm.

“O… okay. I trust you,” the blond said, fingers digging into demonic skin almost hard enough to bruise.

Crawley swallowed and began guiding the two of them through the darkened tunnel.

“Yeesh, how pathetic, huh? That an angel’s more scared of the dark than of me,” he laughed bitterly.

“Oh, Crawley. Apart from our first meeting, I’ve  _ never  _ been scared of you,” Aziraphale said, falling into step beside him.

Completely trusting.

  
  


_ “Is that true, angel?” Crowley asked, smiling timidly. “You were never afraid of me?” _

_ “Not  _ **_once,_ ** _ my darling,” Aziraphale answered, pressing up against his side. _

  
  


“W-well you  _ should  _ be!” Crawley objected. “I… I’m a right terror, I am.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped him.  _ “I’ll  _ say you are.” 

Crawley gawked at the absolute  _ cheek!  _ His rival simply gave him a mischievous, sidelong look. Anxiety was still thrumming beneath his skin, but Aziraphale felt calmer beneath the ministrations of friendly banter. He hadn’t thought it possible for the two of them to share so much as three amiable words, but here they were promenading arm-in-arm as if they were actually friends.

That fear disappeared  _ completely  _ when Aziraphale noticed the corridor brightening around them with daylight. 

“I believe this makes us ‘even’ from the Ark, wouldn’t you say?” Crawley remarked, gesturing with his free hand to the doorway filled with light up ahead.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Aziraphale said, breathless with relief, as the two of them emerged back on the surface.

Crawley moved to perform a little demonic miracle to ensure that the soldiers standing by the doorway didn’t notice anything amiss, but stopped, fingers poised to snap.

“Where… where are the guards?” he asked, looking around for them.

_ “Right here!” _

Crawley barely managed to leap out of the way in time as a spear crackling with divine energy embedded itself into the sand where he’d been standing only moments before. The spear was almost immediately wrenched back out of the ground by a furious Archangel, whose eyes blazed with fire. Three pairs of mauve-colored wings flared behind his back.

“Gabriel!” Aziraphale exclaimed, rushing to his side.

Gabriel’s mouth curled into a snarl that looked wholly out of place on his flawless face. “Get behind me, sunshine.”

Crawley’s eyes met Aziraphale’s for a brief moment, and the Principality saw what almost looked like a flicker of  _ hurt.  _ It was gone as quickly as it came, however, replaced instantly with a defensive hiss, lips pulled back to expose elongated fangs.

Aziraphale saw this confrontation going only one way, and ending with Crawley’s abrupt, violent destruction. The demon seemed to be in agreement, as he kept inching backwards, eyes darting around to find an avenue of escape.

“Gabriel, wait, don’t do this!” Aziraphale pleaded. “He- he  _ saved me!  _ I was lost and… and Crawley helped me find my way back!”

One of his mate’s massive wings curled forward to wrap around him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said, tightening his grip on his spear and husband both. “Demons are traitors to Heaven - every single one! They  _ deserve  _ to be destroyed.”

Crawley growled a wordless threat. Aziraphale managed to wrench himself away from his feathery cocoon to stand in front of Gabriel, arms crossed stubbornly.

“Do you remember our argument?” he asked. He lifted his chin in defiance.

The Archangel practically shrieked,  _ “Aziraphale!  _ Don’t turn your back on a demon, they’ll-”

_ “Do you remember our argument?” _

  
  


_ Crowley burst into guffaws. “Look at the  _ **_stones_ ** _ on this guy, standing up to an Archangel like that!” _

_ Aziraphale tried to look nonchalant. _

_ “Well of  _ **_course_ ** _ it’s easy to stand up to Gabriel when you’re fucking him…” _

**_“HA!”_ **

  
  


“Do I- of  _ course  _ I remember our argument! What does  _ that  _ have to do with anything?!” Gabriel exclaimed.

“If you want to make it up to me, let Crawley go!” Aziraphale replied, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

The Archangel and demon both gasped in shock and surprise, respectively. Gabriel’s mouth opened and closed, as if he were a fish that suddenly found itself deposited on dry land.

“You- he’s- but- we-”

_ “Please,  _ darling. Let’s show a bit of mercy, hm?” Aziraphale suggested gently.

  
  


_ Crowley and Aziraphale held their (unnecessary) breaths. _

  
  


Gabriel’s spear vanished in a puff of lavender-scented smoke and he strode forward to embrace his husband in a tight hug. Aziraphale returned it with gusto, but managed to crane his neck far enough in the direction of where Crawley was standing, riveted.

_ Go,  _ the Principality mouthed.

Crawley shook off his stunned awe, nodded once, then dropped to the ground, once more a tiny snake. He burrowed under the sand with nary a sound, and was soon gone from sight.

  
  


_ “Well I’ll be saved…” Crowley breathed. _

  
  


“Thank you, darling, for letting him go,”

There was a pause, then Gabriel said, “I didn’t do it for  _ him.” _

“Of course not. Why would you?” Aziraphale said, giving him a broad, teasing grin. Gabriel glared at him. “Although, this now means you owe Crawley a  _ favor  _ for saving me.”

Gabriel groaned and hid his face in the nest of snow-white curls right below his chin.  _ “Please  _ don’t remind me.”

Aziraphale giggled in response.

  
  


***~*~*~*~***

Unseen by the two embracing angels Crawely eavesdropped on their words. He made himself  _ truly  _ scarce once the conversation died to be replaced by kisses with a bit more tongue than was strictly necessary.

As he flowed through the sand like it was water, Crawley’s mind swam with all the possibilities of what having an Archangel under his (currently non-existent) thumb could be...


	5. Squirming at Your Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Aziraphale stumble across Crawley at an inn near Golgotha, mourning a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this chapter is a bit more emotionally heavy. But it does have a somewhat hopeful ending.

**Heaven, Universe B, Seconds After the Fall**

Aziraphale pulled Gabriel to his feet and gave him a shy smile. “I think we work well together.”

The Archangel looked around the battlefield. The ones who weren’t destroyed were either being yanked down by tendrils of darkness, cheering at their victory, or nursing injuries.

Gabriel let out a breath of relief. “Thank Mother it’s over. Those rebels got what was coming to them.”

“How can you  _ say that?!”  _ Aziraphale exclaimed. His metaphorical hackles rose. “Those ‘rebels’ were our  _ family!” _

“They  _ also  _ attacked us,” Gabriel reminded him dryly.

The Principality knew better than to talk back to his superior (nevermind the fact that he had just recently run one through with her own sword). As he moved to walk away and see if there were any survivors he could tend to, Gabriel gasped loudly. Aziraphale flinched and spun around, lifting his pilfered sword to fend off an attacker.

“What’s going on? Is it another wave?” he yelped.

He went stock-still when he felt a large, firm hand come gently down on his back to trace the edge of a welt.

Gabriel’s fingers accidentally brushed over an open wound and came away stained with red and gold. “You’re hurt,” he said softly, heart jolting.

“Ah, yes. One of the rebels had some nasty claws on him. Got quite the drop on me,” Aziraphale replied, making Gabriel wince in sympathy. “It’ll heal up on its own soon enough.”

“Not likely,” the Archangel said, shaking his head. “There’s Ichor in these wounds. Your True Form’s been damaged; not badly, but it’ll take longer to heal by itself.”

Aziraphale was thankful that Gabriel couldn’t see his distressed look. “Ah. That’s unfortunate.”

“Let me,” Gabriel said, pressing the flat of his palm completely atop one of the wounds.

Aziraphale winced with a hiss, but a pleasant, cooling sensation trickled down his spine from where the Archangel’s hand was resting. He felt the welts seal themselves shut, and his True Form trilled in response to the influx of Grace. He turned to thank Gabriel for his assistance, but saw how the other angel swayed on his feet like he would keel over at any moment.

Without stopping to consider whether or not it was the proper thing to do, Aziraphale stepped forward to drape Gabriel’s arm over his shoulder to help support him.

His hand came around Gabriel’s waist. “I appreciate the aid, but that was  _ very  _ reckless. We’ve all been fighting non-stop, so you should save your strength.”

Gabriel frowned, eyes blinking sleepily. “Was worth it. I needed you, and then you needed me.”

Aziraphale smiled, flattered at being considered “worth it”.

***~*~*~*~***

**Golgotha, Universe B, 33 A.D.**

Gabriel stared into the middle distance as he allowed Aziraphale to gently coax him down into a chair.

All around the two of them, the inn bustled with activity. Many people had come here to drink and forget the events of the day. As such, the sounds of drunken revelry, sobbing, shouting, or some awful combination of the three practically shook the roof.

Aziraphale sat down at the table beside Gabriel and covered his husband’s much larger hand in his. The other angel’s expression didn’t change, but he flipped his palm to lace their fingers together atop the grainy wood.

Aziraphale sighed heavily. “I know you don’t like ‘Gross Matter’, but perhaps I could get us a jug of beer? It might help a little,” he suggested.

Gabriel shook his head in response.

“No, I… I want to have a clear mind,” He paused, violet eyes tracing the warp and weft of the tabletop. “Think I might go for a walk. Want to come?”

Aziraphale’s mouth curled up in a sad smile. “I’m afraid I don’t feel quite up to going anywhere at the moment. I’ll be here.”

Gabriel nodded in understanding, then stood up. He stooped down to press a quick kiss to the top of bone-white curls, with the promise to be back in a bit. Aziraphale watched his husband’s broad, looming profile wade through the crowd of humans that parted before him like the Red Sea. 

When the splash of lilac color belonging to Gabriel could no longer be seen, Aziraphale turned inwards towards his own grief. He rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands with a shuddering exhale.

_ That poor boy… _

Aziraphale steeled himself and rose from his seat. He fully intended to walk up to the bar and order himself a drink to dull the pain of loss, when he caught sight of someone hunched over the counter in a puddle of spilled beer.

The black abaya she wore concealed her face, and Aziraphale was ready to simply chalk her up to being another run-of-the-mill drunk. When she turned her head and a long lock of hellfire-red hair slipped free, however, the angel felt his breath catch.

What was Crawley doing here?!

She certainly didn’t  _ look  _ like she was practicing any demonic wiles in need of thwarting. In fact, she looked rather… depressed. It wouldn’t be  _ just  _ of Aziraphale to smite her like this, but he couldn’t afford to allow her free reign to tempt souls to damnation!

Perhaps some good old-fashioned posturing might send her packing?

Aziraphale came up behind her, cleared his throat pointedly, and practically bellowed,  _ “Begone,  _ foul serpent! You shan’t tarry here!”

Nobody paid him any mind, seeing him as just another sod shouting nonsense. 

Crawley, however, flinched and began to topple sideways out of her seat. On reflex, Aziraphale reached out and caught her arm, keeping her upright. She slurred out a hiss and batted his hand away before spinning on her chair in a wobbly circle to face him.

Her eyes had gone fully serpentine, but still somehow managed to look red-rimmed. She flung out her arms to her sides. “Ah! It’sss  _ you!  _ Come to  _ boasssssssst  _ about Heaven’s newest triumph?”

“I’m here to keep you from exerting your Hellish influence over the good people of this region!” Aziraphale retorted irritably, keeping her upright once more with a hand on her shoulder when she pitched forward onto his chest.

Crawley sneered, heavily intoxicated. “Of  _ coursssssse  _ o’ great Prinshipality Ass-ziraphale! ‘S not like ‘m here mournin’ a f-friend!” she said bitterly.

Aziraphale nearly dropped her in his surprise.

“Demons don’t  _ mourn!”  _ he snapped.

Crawley’s scowl slipped away to be replaced with a sour twist of her mouth. “Yeah, well,  _ thissss  _ one does,” she huffed, pivoting back around to face the counter.

Instead of picking her up by the scruff of her neck and depositing her bodily outside the inn, Aziraphale observed Crawley for a few moments. He knew that her wretched appearance was most likely just a ruse to get him to let his guard down, but…

If it  _ was  _ just a trick, it was a  _ damn  _ good one!

Her posture, her face, her level of drunkenness, all truly served to give the appearance of a woman in mourning. For the first time since seeing her, Aziraphale felt a niggle of doubt worm its way into his brain. When Crawley extended her hand to fumble for the jug beside her, the angel’s doubt bloomed into full-on stunned realization.

A patch on her abaya’s sleeve had been entirely ripped away. Several more tears of a similar nature were placed up and down the length of her arm. The flesh beneath was unmarred by any gashes or cuts, so it was clear she had done the tearing herself.

Crawley had been shown  _ many  _ times in the past to be a vainglorious creature. She never so much as stepped outside her lair without looking like temptation incarnate.

Now, however, she looked like she’d been dragged backwards through a thorn bush.

Aziraphale’s eyes landed on Crawley’s battered sleeve once more and a memory from that afternoon swam to the surface of his mind. He’d seen how both Marys had rent their own clothing in sorrow, as had several people gathered to witness the execution.

At the time, Aziraphale had thought these humans in the throes of grief so strong it bordered on madness. Now, reflected in the slouch of the demon slumped over before him, he could see it for what it was.

A mourning ritual to honor the dead.

His brows shot to his hairline. “You… you really  _ did  _ care,” he breathed. “You’re  _ grieving.” _

_ “Spot on analysisssss!  _ Ya wanna comm- coma- come- comenda- ya wanna fuckin’ medal?! Well come ‘n geddit!” Crawley slurred, swinging out clumsily with her fist.

Aziraphale easily sidestepped Crawley’s messy attempt at physical assault and the demon toppled onto the ground with a thud. She laid there on the dirty stone floor, snoring uproariously. Aziraphale hooked his arms under hers and hoisted her upright, depositing her back into her stool.

Crawley instantly snorted awake, blinking blearily. She turned her head as if searching for someone, then jolted in surprise when Aziraphale dropped into a seat at the bar beside her. His gentle, sympathetic gaze pinned her in place as surely as if he had run her through with his sword.

“That time in the desert… you weren’t tempting him, were you?” he asked, putting at much understanding into his words as he could.

Crawley seemed to sober up marginally at that. She made a series of noises that  _ may  _ have been protestations, but could just as easily have been nonsense. Aziraphale simply continued staring at her. 

Then, to both of their surprises, Crawley’s face scrunched up. Her lower lip wobbled as fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Aziraphale, unused to such a display from his hated foe, scrambled to come up with a way to make it  _ stop! _

Angelic instincts to comfort and protect all life took over, and he wrapped Crawley up in his arms, crushing her to his chest as they rocked back and forth together. Her hands came up behind him to claw into his robe as heaving sobs wracked her frame.

“H-he w-was j-j-jussssst a carpenter f-from Galilee-e-e-! His travel opport- opportunitiesss were li- limited ssso I showed ‘im all… all the kingdomsssssss of the  _ world!” _ she wailed.

Aziraphale “ssh”-ed her and continued holding her as her howls petered out into hiccuping whimpers.

He ran a comforting hand up and down her back. “Were you… were you there when they-?”

Crawley let out a derisive snort, pulling away slightly (but not enough to leave the circle of Aziraphale’s arms). 

“‘F  _ courssse  _ I was there,  _ AziraFAIL!  _ But  _ you  _ didn’t notice me ‘c-cause you were too busy sssstanding there w-with Goobriel!” She began crying again, beating at the angel’s torso weakly with her palms. “I-I’m jussst a serpent! The dussst at yer feet! A squirming, crawling,  _ slimy-”  _

Aziraphale winced and seized her wrists in his hands, holding her at arm’s length. “Crawley,  _ please-!” _

“That’ssss not m’name,” she whispered, pulling away. She hugged herself. “I changed it.”

Aziraphale gave her a cautious smile. “You did? When?” he asked carefully.

Crawley looked at him, looking almost entirely sober now.

“Just today. It’s  _ Crowley  _ now,” she answered, looking at him almost expectantly.

“‘Crowley,” Aziraphale parrotted, bringing a hand to his chest. His smile grew wider. “It suits you.”

The-demon-formerly-known-as-Crawley allowed her shoulders to slump a little in what seemed to be relief.

“Well, thankssssssss I guess,” she said, a little petulantly. “I didn’t change it for  _ you  _ though. I jusssst didn’t want to sound so ‘squirming at your feet’-ish.”

Aziraphale smiled shyly. “And Crowley, for whatever worth the word of an angel is to you, you are so much  _ more  _ than just a ‘squirming, crawling, slimy serpent’.”

Crowley’s lips parted a little in surprise, but she quickly shook it off when the sounds of heavy footfalls approached.

“What are  _ you  _ doing here, demon?” Gabriel said bluntly, putting Aziraphale’s earlier thoughts into words.

Despite the inherent harshness of his words, however, Gabriel’s voice lacked any and all holy wrath. Instead, he just sounded  _ tired. _

It spoke to just how emotionally exhausted Crowley was as well that she didn’t immediately spring up and attack. She glared over her shoulder at the Archangel.

“I’m here drinking to my friend’s memory,” she replied, with only a hint of metaphorical venom.

Beside her, Aziraphale was tense. Any moment now, Gabriel and Crowley could suddenly break out into vicious combat. Aziraphale needed to be prepared to get the innocent bystanders to safety should such a thing happen.

Eyes the color of communion wine met those a shade darker than greed itself and held for what felt like an eternity. Aziraphale broke the standoff by placing a cautious hand on the inseam of his husband’s elbow.

“There’s been enough loss today,” the blond angel said softly.

Crowley made a vague noise of agreement and turned back to the bar. She wasn’t expecting any harm to come to her, what with Aziraphale apparently looking out for her, but she  _ definitely  _ wasn’t expecting  _ Gabriel  _ of all angels to mumble, “He was  _ my  _ friend too…”

There came the faint chime of an angelic miracle, and then Gabriel was sitting on a stool between Crowley and Aziraphale. The way their seats were arranged formed a perfect equilateral triangle.

Neither of the three said or did anything.

Gabriel was the first to initiate the détente by way of wrapping a broad arm around his husband’s shoulders. Aziraphale leaned into his embrace, finding strength and comfort in the warmth of his mate.

Crawley was pointedly  _ not  _ looking at the sickening display of mutual support right in front of her. When she felt one of her hands being taken by one tipped with five perfectly-manicured nails, her gaze snapped to Aziraphale’s face. The Principality was looking at her with so much  _ compassion  _ shining from his eyes that Crawley felt like she was being immolated.

No.

Wait.

It was just a blush.

She looked away again, but did not remove her hand.


	6. Oysters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale stumbles across Crowley in Rome and tempts him to oysters.

**Rome, Universe B, 41 A.D.**

Gabriel gestured at the board on the table in front of him. “So this… ‘game’ is what the humans do for fun?” he asked.

On the table sat a flat, square-shaped piece of wood upon which were carved 64 smaller squares. Atop it was stacked two small piles of colored stones, one black and the other white. Aziraphale gave a wiggle of delight.

“Indeed! This game is called  _ Latrunculi,”  _ he explained, fiddling with one of the black stones. “The goal is to capture one of  _ my  _ pieces with two of your  _ own  _ and vice-versa.”

_ "I remember all the fun we used to have playing that game,” Aziraphale sighed, reminiscing on his and Crowley’s countless matches during the height of the Imperial Occupation. “As I recall, you always cheated.” _

_ “No!  _ **_You_ ** _ were just so bad it made it  _ **_look_ ** _ like I was cheating!” Crowley insisted, pouting. _

“And humans just… do this for no reason?” Gabriel asked, picking up a white stone.

“It’s not for ‘no reason’, it’s for  _ fun,”  _ Aziraphale stated with an affectionately frustrated pout towards his husband. “‘Fun’ is critical to human health and development, which you would  _ know  _ if you spent more than a week down here,” he finished haughtily.

Instead of retorting back, Gabriel simply made a noise of consideration that was swallowed up by the bustling crowd of the tavern where they sat.

Then, above the din, both angels could hear a voice speaking to the barmaid.

“What have you got? Give me a jug of whatever you think is drinkable,”

Principality and Archangel alike turned to see a thoroughly bored-looking woman slide a cup across the counter to an agitated demon looking like a tourist from out-of-town.

“Jug of house brown. Two sesterces,” she said, accepting the coins she received in return. Crowle scowled and turned back to his drink.

Aziraphale turned back to his husband in surprise. “What’s he doing here?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Not sure,” Gabriel mumbled quietly. “See if you can find out.”

The other angel shot him a baffled glance. “Wha-  _ me?! Why?!”  _ he asked peevishly.

“Because he’s less likely to flee at the sight of you. If  _ I  _ approach, there could be a fight,” Gabriel said in answer to the confusion on Aziraphale’s face.

Aziraphale, for his part, could see the wisdom in that. As much as he and Crowley  _ despised  _ one another, the events eight years prior seemed to have softened their interactions into something bordering almost on reluctant respect.

Besides, if the demon tried anything violent, Gabriel was quite literally less than a stone’s throw away to intervene.

Mind made up, Aziraphale gave his husband’s hand a quick, reaffirming squeeze, and then he stood up. He felt royal-purple eyes watching him intently and his confidence was bolstered.

Although,  _ now  _ he had to figure out what to  _ say. _

As he closed the final few steps to the bar counter he could only think to throw out, “Crowley? Well… fancy running into  _ you  _ here! Still a demon, then?”

He could  _ feel  _ Gabriel face-palming behind him as Crowley turned to him with an  _ offended  _ look.

“What kind of  _ stupid question  _ is that, ‘still a demon’? What else am I going to be, an aardvark?” he snapped. Aziraphale squeaked at the outburst.

_ “You never  _ **_did_ ** _ tell me why you were in such a foul mood and why you were dressed like you’d never seen a Roman in your entire existence,” Aziraphale huffed, crossing his arms. _

_ “Eh… I was sent to tempt Caligula into sin, but… well, you know. I didn’t have anything to  _ **_do_ ** _ when I got there! It was  _ **_boring_ ** _ and I was  _ **_tired_ ** _ and just…” Crowley grumbled angrily. Then, he seemed to come back to himself and he softly laid a hand on his husband’s arm. “You inviting me to Petronius’s, however, was  _ **_just_ ** _ what I needed to cheer up.” _

_ Aziraphale beamed. _

_ “I’m so glad!” he said happily. He gave a curious glance towards the occupants of Universe B. “Though, at the moment, I’m rather more interested in seeing how  _ **_that_ ** _ plays out for our doppelgängers.” _

In the awkward silence that followed, the angel reached for an empty cup next to him that quickly found itself filled with high-quality wine. “Salutaria?” he prompted, holding out his cup and looking at Crowley with more than a hint of stiffness in his voice.

The demon groaned, but completed the toast.

“Salutaria,”

The both took a sip of their respective drinks.

“In Rome long?” Aziraphale asked, giving the other what he hoped was a friendly smile.

Crowley didn’t look at him as he replied, “Just nipped in for a quick temptation.” Aziraphale felt a little bit of his earlier confidence at being able to get viable information out of his rival dribble out of himself and onto the floor. Then, Crowley turned his head just a bit to be able to look at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye. “You?”

The angel couldn’t very well give away Heavenly plans all willy-nilly, so he scrambled to come up with a believable explanation for why he himself was in the area. He remembered how he and Gabriel had been planning to visit a local restaurant that evening, and seized upon the thought.

“I thought I’d try Petronius’s new restaurant,” he said in reply. He glanced at Crowley to gauge whether or not the demon believed him, but Aziraphale could find no suspicion in the lines of his face. “I hear he does  _ remarkable  _ things to oysters.”

Crowley didn’t say anything for a moment in favor of lifting his cup to his lips. Then, he paused.

“I’ve never eaten an oyster,” he said carefully. He placed his drink back down, then turned on his chair so he could stare fully at the angel seated beside him. Though his eyes were hidden by smoked glass, Aziraphale could still see how they  _ burned  _ behind the lenses. “The humans sssssssay oysters are an aphrodisiac…”

_ “I don’t think that’s quite true, is it?” Aziraphale asked, frowning at Crowley-B as if he’d gone mad. _

_ “At the time they were thought to be,” Crowley-A answered. “Nowadays most people know that ‘aphrodisiac oysters’ are a load of nonsense.” _

_ “I wonder why humans used to think that,” his husband mumbled, tapping his chin. “They must have had a good reason.” _

_ “Probably because they kinda look like vag-” _

**_“CROWLEY!!”_ **

“An aphrodisiac, are they?” Aziraphale chuckled nervously, placing his hand on the counter to drum his fingers over the wood. “I’ll have to remember that next time I… um…”

“Next time you…?” Crowley trailed off, leaning into the angel’s personal space. He placed a scorching hand atop Aziraphale’s and let it slide up the length up his arm to slip under his toga sleeve at the shoulder.

Aziraphale gave a strangled, nervous sound as his mouth dropped open.

“Th-the next time Gabriel and I have an anniversary celebration,” he said, angling himself away from Crowley’s questing fingers. Aziraphale couldn’t see it from where he sat, but he could  _ feel  _ Gabriel barely restraining himself from leaping to his defense once more.

At the mention of said Archangel’s name, Crowley jerked his hand away like he’d touched pure Holy Water. He clenched it to a fist and sighed frustratedly.

“Right. You can tell him to stop skulking in the corner, by the way. I smelt his floral stench the  _ moment  _ I walked in,” he said, snatching his drink back up.

Aziraphale and Gabriel shared a cautious glance, then the latter of the two stood up to stand beside his husband at the bar.

“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t smite you straight back to Hell,” Gabriel said threateningly, his shoulders tense and ready for combat.

It took Crowley a moment to answer. “Uh…” he cleared his throat. “...because I  _ just  _ paid for my drink and it’d be a waste of good  _ whatever this is  _ if you  _ did  _ smite me?”

Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter at the demon’s  _ blatant  _ snark. 

Gabriel, for his part, simply stared as if Crowley had uttered a string of gibberish. “That… has got to be the  _ worst  _ excuse to avoid discorporation that I’ve  _ ever  _ heard!”

Crowley picked up his jug by the handle and shook it, the liquid inside sloshing noisily.

“Come  _ oooonnn,”  _ he wheedled, throwing his other arm out. “I  _ just  _ got here! I was supposed to visit this Caligula bloke, but-”

_ “Caligula?!”  _ Gabriel thundered, his mouth curled in disdain. “That human’s been a thorn in Heaven’s side ever since he rose to power!”

“Can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t even need to  _ do  _ anything, but Beelzebub insisted that I stay here until the emperor either dies or is dethroned,” Crowley said, working himself up into a fit of pique.

“It’s all horses and orgies with him, isn’t it?” Aziraphale asked, miracling up a spare seat for Gabriel to plonk down into beside him.

“And they’re not even  _ fun  _ ones,” the demon complained, scrunching up his face. “Bloke’s a bit too weird, even for  _ my  _ tastes.”

“Why am I not surprised you’ve been to an orgy?” Gabriel chuckled, refilling Aziraphale’s cup and passing it to him.

While he himself didn’t indulge in Gross Matter, he’d never begrudge his husband for wanting to.

“Wait…” Aziraphale began, setting his drink down to address Crowley. “I thought you said you ‘just got here’. How have you been to an orgy, then?”

Now it was Gabriel’s turn to hide a snort behind his hand as the demon’s face blanched.

“I- er- that is… ‘just got here’ is very  _ subjective  _ and… and for all  _ you  _ know it could have been last  _ year  _ and-” he stuttered, jabbing his finger at the pair of angels across from him.

“Do you still not know what the second unicorn was for?” Aziraphale tittered teasingly.

_ Aziraphale frowned. _

_ “Well mocking him like that is rather rude,” he said. _

_ “Like a couple of primary school bullies,” Crowley replied, nodding his head sagely. _

“Of  _ course  _ I know!” Crowley-B snarled, his eyes angled slightly downwards in embarrassment for his earlier lack of reproductive knowledge. Then, he slammed his hand on the counter hard enough to almost send the jug tipping over had Gabriel not caught it. “I’m not going to sssit here and listen to you two Heavenly arseholes insult me!”

Crowley practically leapt to his feet, intent on leaving, when a delicate hand caught the hem of his toga to keep him in place.

Aziraphale saw the tension in his rival’s shoulders and hurried to make amends. “Don’t leave, Crowley! We were only teasing, but I can see how mean it was. Let us make it up to you?”

Gabriel sputtered indignantly, but Crowley arched an eyebrow, a slight tell of interest.

“Depends. What did you have in mind?” he asked, fixing Aziraphale with a piercing serpentine stare.

“Why don’t you come to dinner with us?” Aziraphale suggested. He ignored Gabriel’s look of stunned shock and slight outrage. “We can all go out to Pretronius’s, continue our gossip about that Caligula fellow, and have a merry evening!”

Gabriel leaned over to whisper in his ear, “Sunshine, are you  _ really  _ trying to tempt a  _ demon  _ into tagging along with us on our date?”

Aziraphale answered back in a hushed tone, “If he’s with  _ us  _ then he’s not  _ out there  _ causing mischief.”

The Archangel lifted his brow and pursed his lips thoughtfully. It  _ was  _ certainly a clever idea. Crowley’s mind seemed to be running on the same parallels, but for thwarting  _ Heavenly  _ machinations. Aziraphale’s eyes flickered between the two of them, waiting for either acceptance or rejection of his suggestion.

Crowley yanked his toga out of Aziraphale’s hands.

“I accept your apology, meager though it is.This had  _ better  _ be good!” he huffed.

  
  


_ “I’m sure it will be,” snickered Crowley before he could stop himself. _

***~*~*~*~***

After slurping down just  _ one  _ of the slimy little bastards, Crowley could say with certainty that he  _ did not  _ like oysters.

Gabriel appeared to share this opinion, poking at an empty shell with a grimace.

Aziraphale, however, looked like he was in  _ Heaven  _ (not  _ literal  _ Heaven, more like the place humans pictured when  _ they  _ thought of Heaven) as he squeezed a wedge of lemon over the half-shell in his hands.

“I don’t know  _ what  _ you two are complaining about,” he tutted, giving a little shimmy of his shoulders. “These are absolutely  _ scrumptious!” _

Saying so, he stuck his tongue out and slid it between the chilled shell and the soft flesh of the oyster. He tilted his head back expertly and swallowed down the meat with a pleased hum. The flash of pink tongue, the soft moan of delight, and the lemon juice dribbling from the corner of the angel’s mouth all served to send Crowley’s thoughts  _ flying  _ to places that they  _ really  _ shouldn’t be going to.

_ Especially  _ considering that Gabriel was sitting  _ directly across from him! _

Could Archangels read minds?

Crowley  _ desperately  _ hoped they couldn’t. 

“So? Do you feel any different?” Gabriel asked in genuine, innocent curiosity, tapping at the now-empty shell. “Is the aphrodisiac thing working?”

“Oh it  _ definitely  _ is…” Crowley mumbled in a gruff voice. The rest of the world seemed so very far away at the moment, so inconsequential. His eyes focused on how Aziraphale wicked the juice off his chin with a swipe of his thumb before running his tongue over the pad of it.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Aziraphale asked around the digit.

All at once the reality of his situation came crashing down around his shoulders and Crowley jerked backwards.

Had he  _ really  _ just been  _ blatantly ogling  _ his heredity enemy of the past 4,000 years while said enemy’s Archangelic husband was  _ literally within smiting distance?! _

Crowley practically knocked over his chair in his haste to be  _ anywhere  _ else.

Gabriel blinked in surprise at the sudden movement.

“Uh… you alright there, demon?”

“Fine, fine! I’m good!” Crowley lied, panic flaring up in his chest like a branding iron. “I just, uh… forgot to turn in my annual Demonic Miracle expense reports! I need to go take care of that  _ right now  _ or- or Lord Beelzebub will have my head! You don’t want to get a punishment from  _ them,  _ believe me!”

Gabriel leaned back in his seat with a little “ah” of understanding, arms folded across his chest.

“Yeah, you’ll definitely want to get those back to them as soon as you can. Aziraphale sometimes forgets to fill them out and I have to come up with some pretty creative ‘punishments’ when that happens. Right, Sunshine?” he joked with a wink and an elbow nudge to his mate.

Aziraphale almost choked on another oyster.

Crowley made a “ngk”.

Gabriel grinned like the cat that got both the canary  _ and  _ the cream.

_ “Darling,  _ that  _ really  _ isn’t appropriate dinner conversation,” the blond hissed with urgency, unable to hide how his face bloomed crimson all the way down to his collar.

Gabriel didn’t look the  _ least  _ bit apologetic for his innuendo, and instead placed a cheeky hand just on the inner curve of Aziraphale’s thigh. Crowley took this moment of distraction for the opportunity it was and fled, vanishing with the telltale whisper of a demonic miracle.

It was  _ probably  _ best if he avoided his adversary for a while...


	7. A Friendly Suggestion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley comes up with an idea to make sure that Aziraphale stays out of his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never thought I'd say this in a GO fic, but sorry that there's not more Gabriphale in this chapter lol

**Heaven, Universe B, Some Unknowable Time After the Fall, Before Earth’s Creation**

The Healer helped Aziraphale stand up from where he sat on a cot.

“Well, I’m pleased to say that your True Form’s as good as new! That little boost Gabriel gave you really sped up the healing process,” he explained, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

Aziraphale sighed in relief. Despite Gabriel’s generous gift of his own Grace to heal the wounds Aziraphale had suffered during the Rebellion, his True Form had still remained somewhat damaged. He’d needed to make frequent visits to the Healers during his convalescence, but now that he had a clean bill of health, he no longer had to.

He thanked the angel who had tended to him for that day, and exited the Healing Ward, almost running smack into Gabriel as he did so. The Archangel jumped back, a guilty flush on his face.

“H-hey, Aziraphale!” he said nervously. “What, um… how’s it going?”

Aziraphale cocked his head slightly. He looked at the door to the Healing Ward, then back to where Gabriel stood shuffling on his feet, a far cry from his normal confident display.

“Are you…” the blond began, smiling lightly. “Were you  _ eavesdropping?” _

“Wh-what?  _ No!  _ I was just, erm… just walking by,” Gabriel lied. Aziraphale lifted his brows slightly, clearly refusing to believe him, and the Archangel crumbled like paper mâché. “Okay, so I’ve been a  _ little  _ worried. What of it? It’s perfectly reasonable to want to check up on one of my subordinates and make sure they’re alright.”

Aziraphale smiled and pushed himself up on the tips of his toes to press a soft, sweet kiss to the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. The taller angel slumped a little, poleaxed.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said with a teasing smirk.

***~*~*~*~***

**Wessex, Universe B, 537 A.D.**

Crowley sat on a fallen log in front of his campfire, armor discarded on the ground beside him and hands clasped together in front of his mouth in a facsimile of prayer. Though he hadn’t prayed in a  _ very  _ long time, he still liked to have one-on-one conversations with The Almighty. Although, “conversation” was not so much the correct word as it was more like, “ranting incoherently”.

_ Why? Why me? I’m a good demon. I do my job, I turn in my paperwork on time… so  _ **_why?!_ **

If anyone were capable of peering into the demon’s thoughts, they would see that the events at Petronius's centuries before still weighed heavily on his mind. 

The sight of Aziraphale’s head tipped back, the pale column of his throat bobbing as he swallowed, his eyes closed in almost carnal pleasure... Crowley remembered how he had briefly, impetuously, caressed Aziraphale’s arm up to the shoulder. His skin had been so soft and so  _ warm  _ that Crowley’s inner snake hissed in excitement for the chance to get closer.

That very warmth seemed to burn beneath the demon’s skin and he was forced to acknowledge what it was.

Lust.

That, in and of itself, wasn’t much of a problem for your average Hellish denizen. Lusting, as one of the Seven Deadlies, was highly encouraged even! Still, it was one thing to lust for a human, or a fellow demon, it was  _ another  _ to desire an  _ angel. _

An angel who happened to be married to a  _ very powerful and potentially very smite-y  _ Archangel.

An angel who also happened to have been Crowley’s foe, rival, and overall pain-in-the-arse for nigh on 4,000 years.

The demon growled low in his throat with frustration. He cast his eyes upward through the mist blanketing the area.

“I hope you’re not thinking of striking me down or whatever for wanting an angel,” he huffed, leaning backwards until he tilted off the long and onto the ground with his legs sticking straight up and his hands flailing wildly. “It’s not  _ my  _ fault, it’s  _ Yours  _ for putting him down here looking like…  _ that!” _

His arms flopped down, splayed across the moist earth. 

_ Is this all part of your stupid Plan? Tempt the first tempter with something he can’t have so he slowly goes starkers? _

Crowley sat back up, running a hand over his hair which was clipped so close to his head as to be almost nonexistent. He’d mostly kept out of Aziraphale’s way these past 500 years, but the angel had the  _ worst  _ habit of turning up wherever Crowley went like a bad scillingas. Though they’d hardly spoken since Rome, Crowley still always buggered off to another continent the  _ second  _ he caught sight of his foe.

Thus, did he find himself in Wessex, masquerading as the Black Knight, and sowing chaos in his wake. It had been a  _ merciful  _ seven years without constantly worrying about Aziraphale making an appearance (he’d last left him in South America), but Crowley was getting tired of constantly running in order to avoid his own  _ stupid  _ libido.

He pushed himself to his feet and snatched up his shortsword. He slipped it from its sheath and gave it a practiced twirl, slicing through the fog.

There was nothing for it.

He was going to have to kill the angel.

Discorporation would buy him a decent amount of time, provided Aziraphale didn’t use his “Shagging the Archangel Gabriel” privileges to push the paperwork through, but  _ proper  _ destruction would be preferable. Though Crowley’s sword was incapable of producing Hellfire, he’d imbued it with enough infernal power to utterly demolish the True Form of a Principality easily enough. The hardest part would be getting close enough to Aziraphale to  _ use  _ it without getting smote by Gabriel in the process.

  
  


_ Aziraphale gave an uncomfortable grimace, “Ooh. That thing looks nasty,” he said quietly. _

  
  


Crowley gave another swing of his sword, delighting at the way it hissed through the air. 

He was about to do it again, when one of the mercenaries he’d hired to help him in his mission appeared out of the gloom. “Sir! Sir! A knight approaches!”

Crowley blasphemed and sheathed his sword. He kicked up some dirt onto the fire, extinguishing it.

“Okay, see if you can lure him in for an ambush. Let me handle the rest,” he ordered.

The mercenary nodded, and disappeared back into the mist with nary a sign that he’d ever been there. With a snap of his fingers, Crowley instantly donned his blackened chainmail and helmet. Through the pressing silence of the fog, he could hear a voice calling out.

“Hello? I, Sir Aziraphale of the Table Round, am here to speak to the Black Knight,”

Crowley cursed again, then realized something.

Aziraphale was alone.

This was his  _ chance! _

Without another moment to waste, Crowley marched forward towards where he sensed the angel, practically shining through the mist like the beacon of goodness he was.

“You have sought the Black Knight, foolish one. But you have found… your  _ death,”  _ he declared, a vicious smile creeping onto his face. He poured a little bit of Power into his statement, giving his eyes a more unnatural glow.

Aziraphale didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. One eyebrow ticked up and his lips parted in confusion.

“Is that you out there, Crowley?” he asked in slight surprise.

Well, so much for the element of surprise.

“It is,” the demon said, drawing his sword.

“What the  _ Hell  _ are you playing at?” Aziraphale demanded, not even reaching for his  _ own  _ weapon.

At the unbothered, fearless expression on the angel’s face, Crowley felt himself falter. Was his foe  _ truly  _ not threatened? Surely he could  _ feel  _ the demonic power radiating from the blade? Aziraphale should have been begging for his life, screaming, fighting back,  _ anything  _ instead of talking to Crowley like the demon had been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin.

“I’m here spreading foment,” Crowley mumbled. He was very conscious of two other mercenaries behind him, watching for signs of an altercation. With a gesture of his hand, he sent them back to camp with a slight occult suggestion that they might have left their socks out in this weather.

Aziraphale sputtered. “What is that, some kind of porridge?” he asked, throwing his arms out.

“No. I’m… you know… fomenting dissent and discord,” Crowley replied. His eyes dimmed to their regular level. “King Arthur’s been spreading too much peace and tranquility in the land, so I’m here, you know, fomenting.”

If it wouldn’t have looked  _ incredibly  _ foolish doing so, he would have smacked his own forehead.  _ Why  _ was he going about divulging Hellish plans to the opposition?!

“Well, I’m meant to be ‘fomenting’ peace,” Aziraphale said huffily.

Crowley’s head jerked up in surprise. Had that really just happened? Had Aziraphale just  _ willingly  _ talked about his  _ own  _ assignment, wherein he’d been so tight-lipped before? He doubted that Gabriel or the other Archangels would approve, so what had brought about this change?

Crowley’s mind seized on an idea. While killing Aziraphale was still on the table, it didn’t need to be his  _ only  _ plan…

He took a step closer until there was barely a foot of space in between them. Aziraphale looked wary, but didn’t flinch away or go for his weapon. 

This was a promising sign. “So we’re both working very hard in damp places and just cancelling each other out?” Crowley asked with a disarming smile.

“Well, you could put it like that. It  _ is  _ a bit damp,” Aziraphale admitted carefully, glancing around the soggy clearing in which they found themselves. He waved away an errant tendril of fog that threatened to cling to his skin.

“Be easier if we both stayed home; if we just sent messages back to our head offices saying we’d done everything they asked for, wouldn’t it?” Crowley suggested with a gentle, tempting lilt to his voice.

“But that would be  _ lying!”  _ Aziraphale gasped. He looked around, flighty and paranoid, like he expected Uriel or Sandalphon to jump out of a bush with an accusatory shout.

Crowley shifted on his feet with a grimace. His plan was falling apart in front of his eyes. If he could  _ just  _ get Aziraphale to agree to stay  _ wherever it was  _ he was staying, then he’d no longer run the risk of crossing paths with him. Therefore, Crowley  _ also  _ wouldn’t run the risk of his own pesky desires potentially ending up with him on the business end of an Archangelic smiting because he was dumb enough to act on them.

“Eh, possibly, but the end result would be the same: cancel each other out,” he said, trying to  _ will  _ the other supernatural entity into seeing the wisdom of his words.

“But my dear rival…” Aziraphale interrupted, stepping back. Crowley unconsciously perked up at being called “dear” and moved forward, almost infringing on the other’s personal space. “...well they’d  _ check.  _ Michael’s a… bit of a stickler. You don’t want Gabriel to…”

“What?” Crowley snapped, something dangerously close to  _ protectiveness  _ welling up in his chest. “Does he  _ threaten you  _ if you disobey?”

_ “No!  _ How dare- whenever I fail an assignment, he gets this  _ dreadful  _ look about him like… like he’s disappointed that things couldn’t work out the way he’d hoped. He has  _ never once  _ threatened or blamed me! Frankly, he looks like an overlarge dog who’s been kicked and I can’t  _ stand  _ to see him like that!”

  
  


_ Crowley erupted into thunderous guffaws at the thought of  _ **_Gabriel_ ** _ of all wankers pouting. Aziraphale seemed perturbed by the mental image, and cringed so hard he swore his spine was about to telescope. _

  
  


Crowley-B blinked in surprise. It was hard to imagine the titanic, imposing Gabriel looking anything less than perfectly put-together. His mind tried to dredge up an image of what “kicked puppy Gabriel” might look like, but recoiled from it.

He schooled his features back into careful nonchalance.

“Oh, our lot have better things to do than verifying compliance reports from Earth,” he said. “As long as they get the paperwork, they seem happy enough. As long as you’re being seen to be doing  _ something  _ every now and again.”

He waited, watching for any signs of caving from Aziraphale. His hopes were dashed when the angel shouted, “No! Absolutely not! I am  _ shocked  _ that you would even  _ imply  _ such a thing! We’re not having this conversation. Not another word.”

Before Crowley could protest, maybe try again, Aziraphale turned and stomped off, cloak billowing around his shoulders and invoking the image of indignantly puffed-up wings. Frustration just a shade lighter than full-blown  _ fury  _ bubbled up inside Crowley. His hand instinctively flew to the handle of his sword.

_ His back is turned. Just draw it and cut him down. It would be so  _ **_easy._ **

Instead, his anger dissipated like smoke. His hand slipped down.

“Right…” he mumbled, a disappointed sigh appearing in his voice as he watched the source of - and solution to - all his problems walk away.

“Right!” Aziraphale sniped back over his shoulder, vanishing from sight.

Crowley stood there, alone and damp, until he could no longer sense the angel’s presence. He then ripped his helmet off his head and hurled it against a tree hard enough to splinter the trunk.


	8. Corruption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's infernal sword once again makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a bit of a gross vomit metaphor.

**Nicaea, Universe B, 1097 A.D.**

A crusader, bedecked in gleaming chainmail and flawless white surcoat, rode up to the walls of Nicaea atop a powerful, majestic stallion. A heavy iron helmet concealed his features, but his voice rang out clear despite it.

“I come on behalf of Pope Urban II!” the crusader shouted up at the sentries standing guard atop the parapets. They didn’t seem to view him as any sort of threat, and it made him feel belligerent. “He and his fellow commanders seek to claim this city in the name of the church! Surrender now, and we may allow you to leave unharmed!”

The sentries yelled back down that they would do no such thing, and the crusader grit his teeth. He’d  _ hoped  _ it wouldn’t come down to a siege, but it appeared that there was no other option. He yanked on his horse’s reins to turn it around and report to his commander that his half-baked attempts at diplomacy had failed, when he heard a familiar voice calling out to him.

“Wait! Good sir knight, wait!”

The crusader frantically tried to kick his horse into a gallop but the stubborn beast refused to obey.  _ Why  _ did animals not  _ listen  _ to him?!

“Nonono, come on! Not him! Not now!” he whispered desperately.

Behind him, he heard the city gates creak open wide enough to allow a single body to slip through. Aziraphale, dressed as a simple mercenary, complete with dark green cloth armor hurried in front of the crusader’s horse and spread his arms to block the animal’s path.

He looked desperately up at the man astride the horse and babbled, “Wait, please! If you could be so kind as to bring me to your commander, perhaps I could-”

The crusader groaned. “My commanders are  _ not  _ going to listen to your attempts to change their minds, angel,” he said agitatedly. He put an emphasis on the last word, and Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“C… Crowley?” he stuttered, pushing himself up on his tiptoes to try and peer through the eye-slits in the helmet. “What are  _ you  _ doing campaigning for, well… not  _ Heaven,  _ but Urban’s  _ idea  _ of Heaven?!”

Crowley removed his helmet, finally allowing himself to  _ breathe.  _ “What does it look like?!” he snapped. He wavered in his frustration for a moment when baby blue eyes widened in shocked hurt, but stubbornly held onto it. “I’m taking something meant to be ‘Holy’ and corrupting it for Hellish purposes! Just  _ look  _ at all the looting and pillaging these ‘soldiers of God’ are doing! In the past year  _ alone,  _ I’ve been promoted to Viscount thanks to them. But  _ my  _ question is this: what are  _ you _ doing defending  _ this city,  _ of all places? Shouldn’t you be in… I don’t know… Rome or something? With the pope?”

“Well…  _ technically  _ I’m not supposed to be on Earth at  _ all  _ for the next few years,” Aziraphale said nervously, looking down at his feet. Crowley gawked at him as if he’d gone mad.

“Wait, you  _ sssnuck  _ out of  _ Heaven?!”  _ he exclaimed. “Were you on house-arrest or something?!”

“Don’t be absurd!” Aziraphale scolded. “If you must know, Gabriel thought I’d be safest back in Heaven until this whole ‘crusade’ mess died down.”

“Yeah. You  _ would be.  _ You should go back home, Aziraphale. There’s nothing you can do for these people. The crusaders  _ will  _ take the city, and you can’t stop it,” Crowley said cynically,  _ finally  _ managing to spur his horse in the direction he wanted it to go.

He didn’t look back to see if Aziraphale was watching him. For some reason, the thought of seeing  _ disappointment  _ in the angel’s eyes had Crowley choking around the lump in his throat.

***~*~*~*~***

**Heaven, Universe B, 1097 A.D. (Or Its Closest Heavenly Proximation), One Month Later**

Gabriel was  _ busy. _

The crusade was occurring right on schedule, and what would be the first major siege of it was just as punctual. Unfortunately for him, that meant having to process  _ all  _ the paperwork of the influx of casualties from it that would be entering Heaven. To his confusion and displeasure, however, there were a  _ lot  _ less crusaders entering Paradise than he’d thought there would be.

The workload was still  _ massive,  _ of course, but only a meagre  _ percentage  _ of what he’d expected.

Just  _ what  _ was going on down there to prevent  _ so many  _ Holy Knights from ascending to Heaven?! It  _ reeked  _ of demonic interference, and Gabriel was loath to do so, but he might need his husband’s help in getting to the bottom of this one.

_ Aziraphale… _

Gabriel dragged his hands down his face. It had been 35 days (and seven hours, and twelve minutes, and thirty seconds, but who was counting?) since last they’d seen each other. Gabriel had temporarily recalled Aziraphale back to Heaven in order to keep him out of harm’s way when the crusade began, but the mind-boggling amount of paperwork had kept them apart since then.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be  _ so bad  _ if Gabriel were to… take a step outside his office for a moment? Just to see if Aziraphale could give him some insight into The Opposition, of course;  _ technically  _ that was still working!

The Archangel got up from his desk and opened the door to his office a crack and peeked a single royal-purple eye through the gap. The corridor was empty, thankfully, so there wouldn’t be anyone to catch him. 

Wait...

He shook his head.

What did it  _ matter  _ if someone caught him? He wasn’t some fledgling sneaking off for a tryst, he was the  _ Archangel-Fucking-Gabriel  _ and he had  _ every right  _ to go visit his husband, for work-related reasons or not! With that in mind, he straightened his crisp tunic, made sure his shoulder-length hair was parted properly (apparently it was the style of humans at the time, and Gabriel  _ did  _ pride himself on his fashion), and promptly made his way to his and Aziraphale’s shared quarters.

***~*~*~*~***

Crowley jolted awake on his bedroll. For a moment, he didn’t quite understand why he’d woken up so suddenly, but the angry shouts from the camp outside his tent gave him enough answers as to the reason.

He took all of half a second to snatch up his infernal sword that had never quite left his side since Wessex, slip on a pair of smoked quartz lenses (Holy Knights tended to not like those with snake eyes) and threw open his tent flap with a bark of, “Oi! What the  _ fuck  _ is going on out here?! It’s barely sunrise!”

“It’s the city!” another crusader replied, his eyes wide with shock. He pointed to a tight crowd of soldiers gathered around their commanders. “Nicaea surrendered to the Byzantines! Alexius isn’t allowing any of us inside the walls beyond groups of ten!”

_ “What?!”  _ Crowley snarled. Though he hadn’t enjoyed the siege’s bloodshed, he’d been looking forward to another potential promotion that would follow after the inevitable sacking. “What the bloody Hell are we supposed to do  _ now?!” _

“Don’t know, but in the last battle we were able to capture the man responsible for negotiating the city’s surrender. Commander Godfrey and the others are trying to decide what to do with him,” the young crusader replied bitterly, crossing his arms and jerking his head in the direction he’d earlier been pointing.

With a growl that came from  _ deep  _ within his chest, Crowley drew his sword. The other man scrambled backwards. To a human eye, the weapon looked no different than any other, despite giving off an unnatural vibe.

To a supernatural being, however, the power attached to it was clear. The blade was scorched black and chipped, shot through with cracks from which leaked red-orange light. Crowley marched towards the crowd, fully intending on cutting down the insolent human who’d ruined his plans, but froze when he noticed that it was no  _ human  _ at all!

With his hands bound in front of him, Aziraphale knelt in the dirt, encircled on all sides by  _ furious  _ crusaders. His linen trousers were stained with mud, and his shirt hung from his back in tatters to the point where he may as well have not been wearing one at all. He didn’t look like he’d been beaten, but the scratches and bruises that adorned his body spoke to the idea that he’d put up quite the struggle while he was dragged out.

Commander Godfrey turned to Crowley. “Ah, and here’s our messenger now!”

Aziraphale’s head jerked up to face this new foe. When he spotted Crowley, his face performed a complicated series of emotions. At first, he seemed pleased to see him, but then his smile dropped away only to be instantly replaced with a self-satisfied sneer.

He gave a cocky tilt of his head. “Ah, Crowley, how lovely to see you, my dear. What was that you told me about ‘not being able to do anything’?” he smirked. Somehow, despite his battered appearance, he managed to radiate enough smug superiority to have Crowley’s bones itching in pure agitation.

***~*~*~*~***

Gabriel rapped on the door to his quarters with his knuckle. “Sunshine? I’m back! I managed to sneak away from work for a bit,” he called out.

No answer.

He frowned slightly, and pushed the door open.

The room was empty, and looked like it hadn’t been touched or lived in for some time. The bed was still made, the bookshelves were untouched, and all the furniture was coated with a fine layer of dust, which shouldn’t even be  _ possible  _ in Heaven!

Gabriel took a nervous step backwards.

Where was…

He groaned out loud once he realized what must have happened. Aziraphale, gentle soul with a soft spot for the humans that he was, must have snuck back down to Earth while Gabriel was busy.

As much as Gabriel  _ adored  _ his husband’s stubborn nature, Aziraphale’s jaunt down to the planet’s surface brought with it a host of complications: namely the fact that he could potentially end up hurt or tortured or  _ worse.  _ The Archangel licked his pointer finger, which began sparking with purple flames, and he started tracing a sigil in the air in front of him.

Michael’s, specifically.

When the last loop of the sigil was completed, Michael’s voice could be heard loud and clear.

“Gabriel?” they asked. “Why are you calling me? What’s going on?”

“Aziraphale’s run off. I need to go find him and bring him home, so I’ll need you to cover my paperwork while I go fetch him,” 

Gabriel didn’t need to see Michael’s face to know that his fellow Archangel was rolling their eyes.

“Really, brother? You couldn’t manage to keep him contained and now need  _ me  _ to cover for you? You’d think someone at your level would be better at keeping him in line or, at the very  _ least,  _ obedient…” they said sardonically.

Gabriel jabbed a finger at the sigil, despite knowing full-well that Michael couldn’t see him. “You will  _ not  _ talk about my mate and husband like that. He’s not someone that needs to be ‘contained’ or forced into obedience,” he growled. “You may be Her Wrath, but  _ I  _ am Her Messenger and you  _ will  _ give Aziraphale the same respect you would give me.”

His demand was met with ringing silence from Michael. Then, “I’ll send someone up to take care of the paperwork.”

The sigil fizzled out and Gabriel was left alone, standing there and clenching his fists in impotent anger. This wasn’t the first time his siblings had treated Aziraphale as a lesser being and he knew that, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last. His heart twisted with guilt at the bitter reminder that his fellow Archangels could be so cruel. A not insignificant part of himself worried that one day Aziraphale might just get fed up with it all and leave him for someone better.

Someone more “on his level”.

***~*~*~*~***

Crowley managed to wrench his eyes away from the captive angel and towards his commander instead. “Is this the bloke responsible for convincing the city’s leaders to surrender to the Byzantines for protection?” he asked, gesturing with the tip of his sword.

Before Godfrey could answer, Aziraphale spoke up.

“I am indeed. It’s not the  _ best  _ outcome for the city, admittedly, but  _ far  _ better than allowing you looters and murderers to run rampant through the streets,”

The crowd surrounding Aziraphale erupted into angry shouts and jeers, but the angel remained steadfast in his convictions.

“So what are we gonna do with ‘im?” Crowley asked. “Ransom him back to Nicaea? I’m sure they’d pay pretty well to have their ‘chief negotiator’ returned.”

“I had something else in mind,” Godfrey said maliciously.

“Our men want blood, and blood they shall have,” another commander, Robert, declared, arms sweeping wide at the gathered crowd. “And who better to deliver the killing blow than  _ you?”  _ Saying so, he nodded at Crowley’s sword.

“He makes an excellent point,” Godfrey said, lip curling in disdain as he glared down at the man bound by his feet. “You two seem to know each other, but I get the  _ distinct  _ impression that he’s been naught but a thorn in your side.”

The realization that he was expected to publicly execute Aziraphale before a crowd howling for vengeance hit Crowley  _ painfully  _ hard in that moment. And this wouldn’t be a simple discorporation, this would be true, utter, annihilation. Aziraphale seemed to sense this, his eyes finally alighting on the infernal blade in Crowley’s trembling grasp, and the angel began feebly struggling against his bonds.

Could he do this?

Could Crowley  _ really  _ take that final step in ridding himself of his foe for good?

All he had to do was to stab his sword directly into Aziraphale’s arrogant, righteous, soft,  _ good  _ heart.

Aziraphale’s attempts to escape re-doubled as Crowley took a step forward.  _ Why  _ wasn’t the angel miracling himself to safety? Could he not? Perhaps the proximity of Crowley’s blade, heavy with occult magic strong enough to destroy a Principality, was preventing him from accessing his abilities like all those millenia ago in Egypt? Regardless of the cause, Aziraphale was bound and helpless before him, and all Crowley had to do was…

Was…

Crowley seized the handle of his sword in both hands and raised it high, blade pointed downwards. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. In the split second before he delivered the final blow, Crowley heard a whisper.

_ “Gabriel… I’m sorry…” _

The demon thought of kicked puppies and of golden blood staining the sand.

He thought of shattered tablets, and a hidden room.

He thought of a sleeve torn in mourning and an angel’s oyster-based apology.

With one final roar he plunged his sword down.

Directly into the ground.

Aziraphale flinched back with a strangled cry. 

Crowley sunk to his knees. “I… I can’t do it,” he mumbled. “I  _ won’t  _ do it!”

Aziraphale stared at him in open awe. The demon’s fingers slipped from the hilt of his weapon as he pushed himself back onto his feet.

“Crowley…”

“I’m not going to hurt him,” he murmured. “I’m done.”

Godfrey tutted. “A pity.”

Faster than Crowley had time to react, the commander wrenched the demonic blade out of the sand and sliced it across Aziraphale’s chest.

_ “No!!” _

Aziraphale collapsed at the same time Crowley dropped to his knees beside him. The angel convulsed, his eyes rolling back as black tendrils crawled across his flesh from the gash on his torso which oozed a hideous mixture of tar and ichor. The assembled humans stumbled back in horror at the sight.

“It… it isn’t  _ human!” _

Crowley was heedless of everything else around him that wasn’t Aziraphale. His hands hovered anxiously, unsure of what to do or where he could touch. Quite against his will, a sob choked him. The angel - his angel, as he’d privately come to think of him over the centuries - was  _ dying  _ right in front of him! 

While he’d initially been in favor of killing Aziraphale, in a “general idea” kind of way, to witness it first hand was another matter entirely. Guilt and despair fought for equal space in Crowley’s chest.

He needed to  _ fix this, dammit  _ but everyone was so  _ loud  _ and distracting and he just needed more  _ time to  _ **_fucking_ ** _ think! _

All sound disappeared, then.

Crowley jerked his head up with a wet gasp. The world was silent, apart from his sobs. Around him, everyone had frozen in place like a still-life on canvas. Crusaders, trapped in time like mosquitoes in amber, were stuck mid-run as they fled. Robert was utterly immobile from where he’d reached out to grasp Godfrey’s arm. Godfrey, for his part, was suspended in the exact moment he dropped Crowley’s sword in shock.

Nothing was moving apart from the demon gaping in slack-jawed astonishment, and the angel twitching where he lay as the last pieces of his True Form began crumbling into dust. Crowley, never one to pass up an opportunity, threw himself into trying to save Aziraphale. 

“Come on you ssssstupid snake!  _ Think!”  _ he babbled frantically, gripping his own hair in both hands. “‘S jussst a little demonic energy! No big deal! Just- just pull it out! Yeah! Like lancing a boil!”

The one problem with his plan was that, most likely, Aziraphale might not survive in the time it took for Crowley to remove the Corruption. He needed  _ two  _ pairs of hands, one to extract the energy, and another to keep Aziraphale’s True Form from collapsing and that wasn’t bloody likely to happen unless…

_ Gabriel! _

It would be a little tricky for a demon to summon an Archangel, but it wasn’t  _ impossible!  _ All Crowley had to do was draw the sigils, give it a bit of juice, and hope that Gabriel wouldn’t simply smite him on principle when he appeared. Plan in mind, Crowley placed a hand to Aziraphale’s scorching cheek.

“You’re gonna be alright, angel. I  _ promise,”  _

Before he could second-guess himself, Crowley placed a quick kiss to the slope of Aziraphale’s sweat-soaked forehead, and backed up enough to give himself room to work. With a claw-tipped finger, he began carving a sigil in the dirt. He ignored the runes for binding and control, as he just needed Gabriel  _ here,  _ not necessarily pliant. When the sweeping, hooked sigil was complete, Crowley placed his hands against it and pumped a bolt of power through it to give it life.

Almost instantly, the air filled with the smell of ozone and lavender. Electricity arced through the air and Crowley could feel the hairs on his arms and nape rise up. Whether that was from fear or static remained to be seen. With the sound of a clap of thunder, Gabriel appeared before him, looking more than a little discombobulated.

“Where-? How did I-? I was just…” he sputtered, looking around. The first thing he saw was Crowley, and his eyes flashed dangerously.  _ “You!  _ You’ve got  _ some nerve  _ summoning me-”

“Aziraphale’s dying!” the demon blurted, not wanting to listen to the Archangel’s holier-than-thou spiel.

Gabriel’s face immediately fell and his hand instinctively flew to his wedding ring.

“What?” he gasped, casting his eyes about the area.

When he spotted his husband, thrashing on the ground in the throes of Corruption, he took off towards him with a strangled scream. Crowley followed, trying to get Gabriel to listen to him.

“He was sliced with a blade filled with demonic energy. I can draw it out, but I  _ need  _ you to keep him alive long enough for me to do so. Can you do that?” he said, forcing himself to remain calm.

Gabriel gathered up Aziraphale in his arms. “Come on, Sunshine… Aziraphale… don’t- don’t-” he sniffed, pulling him closer.

With a growl of irritation, frustration, and  _ fear,  _ Crowley pulled his hand back and  _ slapped  _ the Archangel across his stupid, perfect face. It seemed to do the trick, as Gabriel’s desperate pleas were immediately cut off to be replaced by stunned silence.  _ “Gabe!  _ You  _ need to calm the  _ **_fuck_ ** _ down!  _ Keep him  _ alive  _ for Somebody’s sake!”

Gabriel blinked rapidly, then nodded his head with a newfound determination. With the hand that wasn’t currently cradling Aziraphale, he started pumping Grace into the other angel’s battered body.

Gabriel kissed the top of blond curls. “It’s alright, Sunshine, you’ll be okay. We’ve got you,” he whispered.

Crowley swallowed and took one of Aziraphale’s limp hands in two of his own. He closed his eyes and tried to call the power he had poured into the blade - and subsequently into the angel -  _ back. _

_ You are  _ **_my_ ** _ energy... _

The Corruption inside Aziraphale pulsed in recognition of it’s master, causing his body to give another spasm.

_ I’ve had you since The Fall. You are  _ **_not_ ** _ going to destroy him.  _

Crowley could sense the Corruption winding itself tighter around Aziraphale’s True Form in protest, dissolving a little more of it as it did so. It was immediately met with a sharp tug from its master, attempting to wrestle it away from its prize.

_ Don’t even  _ **_think_ ** _ of it! _

Scales broke out across Crowley’s face as, with one final, tremendous, metaphysical yank, he  _ ripped  _ the Corruption completely out of Aziraphale, reabsorbing it instantly. The demon fell backwards, hard on his rear, and the dark lines on Aziraphale’s skin faded to nothing under the healing caress of Gabriel’s Grace.

Gabriel paid no attention to the nauseated demon in favor of checking on his husband’s True Form. It was dim, and cracked in the places that weren’t completely destroyed. The damage was  _ extensive,  _ but by no means fatal; though Aziraphale would likely be in recovery for a while. Gabriel didn’t even bother hiding the gratitude that shone from his eyes as he turned his head to look at Crowley.

“Demon Crowley I… I can’t even  _ begin to…  _ that was  _ amazing  _ and-”

He was silenced once again, but this time by way of the demon holding up a hand. “Gi… gimme a mo’, Gabe…” he groaned, feeling like he’d vomited in his mouth and been forced to swallow it back down. A rather apt comparison, frankly.

He straightened up and staggered to where Godfrey was still suspended in time. Crowley took his sword back and, with a demonic miracle, dissolved the accursed thing to ash. He swiped his hands across his tunic, and returned to Aziraphale and Gabriel’s side. The Archangel eyed him with a hint of trepidation.

“How… how are you  _ doing  _ all of this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Crowley admitted, resting his forehead on his knees as he tried to figure out how to release his hold on the flow of time. “I just… I needed a moment to come up with a plan to save him and-”

“Waitwaitwait!” Gabriel interrupted, confused. “Why did  _ you  _ of all beings want to help Aziraphale?”

Though Gabriel couldn’t see it, Crowley’s eyes had gone wide. Why  _ did  _ he save the angel? He was physically attracted to Aziraphale, sure, but you don’t stop time and pull someone back from the brink of death for just a quick fuck.

You do it for someone you-

Someone you l-

You lo-

Ugh, just the  _ thought  _ of the word had Crowley gagging. From there, he didn’t “stand” so much as “shoot straight up like a spring daisy through snow”.

“Welp, it’s been nice chit-chatting with ya, Gabe me ol’ mate, but I’ve gotta… go. So you  _ miiiight  _ want to get out of here before I release the time stream, ‘cause there are a  _ lot  _ of pissed crusaders here in a moment,” he said, patting the Archangel’s shoulder in an awkward facsimile of camaraderie.

“Oh! Yeah! Thanks, er, demon,” Gabriel replied, snapping his fingers.

With a chime and flash of light, he and Aziraphale returned to Heaven. Crowley was left behind, and thankful for it. As he melted down into his serpent form, time resumed around him. In the bedlam, he was able to wriggle away and reflect on how things had just gotten even more complicated for him.

***~*~*~*~***

Aziraphale groaned and peeled his eyes open. 

The first thing he saw was the off-white colour of the ceiling in his and Gabriel’s quarters.

Heaven.

He was back in Heaven.

But how? All he could remember was Crowley sparing him, a flash of movement, and then… nothing. Aziraphale made to move his arm, but found himself unable to do so. His entire  _ body  _ felt weak. With what little strength he had, he managed to angle his head a little to follow the length of his arm with his eyes down to his hand, which was carefully held in one of Gabriel’s own.

The Archangel was in a chair beside the bed in which Aziraphale lay, with his upper body resting on it and his face turned away. Gabriel never slept, so he must have been just staring at the opposite wall all this time, waiting for his husband to awaken.

Aziraphale tried to speak. “Dearest...” he rasped, his voice a dried out husk.

The Archangel jolted and sat upright. His watery, red-rimmed eyes took in all of Aziraphale,  _ alive! _

“Sunshine!” he gasped incredulously. Careful so as not to jostle his husband, Gabriel climbed into the bed and cupped Aziraphale’s gaunt face in his large hands. “I… the Demon Crowley summoned me and- you were  _ dying,  _ Aziraphale and I- I almost-”

If Aziraphale had any strength in his body, he would have embraced his husband. All he could manage, however, was a weak smile.

“It’s alright, darling. I’m here. I’m safe” he said, eager to get Gabriel’s mind away from the horrific memory it was no doubt hyper-focusing on. “How long was I unconscious?”

“A… a while,” the other angel admitted, looking away. “I may have lost track. I’ve been watching over you the whole time.”

_ “What?!  _ Darling you shouldn’t have done that! What about your work?” Aziraphale gasped.

“It’s okay. Michael sent someone to cover for me before I found you. I’ll make sure whoever it was gets a Commendation,” Gabriel shifted a little so he could lay on his back, and hold Aziraphale under his arm. Despite it all, he managed to smile too. “I hope you realize that you sneaking off is what started this mess in the  _ first place.  _ Now I owe that demon  _ two  _ favors.”

There was a brief pause as the Archangel’s words sunk in. “Why would you owe Crowley another favor?” Aziraphale asked, feeling slightly confused.

“Do you not remember?” Gabriel asked quietly. He looked down at Aziraphale, worried. “You were injured with the sword of his and he… fixed it, somehow, by extracting the Corruption from you. He summoned me to keep you alive while he did so.”

“That’s… unusual,” Aziraphale mumbled, brows furrowing.

“Tell me about it!” the Archangel laughed, pulling Aziraphale closer to him. “I doubt he helped you out of the goodness of his heart. Maybe he just wants to have me at his beck and call. Like a certain Principality I know.”

Gabriel waggled his eyebrows playfully, but Aziraphale’s mind was elsewhere. “Maybe…” he hummed, resting his head on the other angel’s shoulder.


	9. Plague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley asks Aziraphale to do something that the angel has never done before...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, imma be square with y'all because you deserve it: this chapter deals with the Black Plague and is pretty graphic. There's death, disease, and all other manner of darker things associated with those. As I was writing it, I was worried about whether it was appropriate to post this chapter considering the times we live in, but I decided that this little warning here should be sufficient. If you want to avoid any pandemic/plague themes, then I heartily reccommend you skip this chapter (I would not fault you for doing so. I work in a hospital on the LITERAL frontlines against COVID. I've seen some shit. I get it.)
> 
> For those of you who stick around, I hope you enjoy!

**Universe B, Firenze, 1350 AD**

Aziraphale hobbled through the streets of Tuscany, leaning on a wooden crutch to support himself. Though the afternoon was sunny and without a cloud in the sky, the air itself was choked with so much death and disease that the angel swore he could taste it on his tongue. His once-pristinely white monk’s robes were stained with various smears of blood and pus and vomit and  _ who knows what else!  _ The hem of his sleeves and skirt had blackened to nearly grey. He reached up to swat away an errant fly that buzzed his head.

As he did so, he heard a desperate voice gasp out,  _ “Padre… per favore…” _

Aziraphale turned to find a man slumped against a wall. He was naked to the waist, thin and pale to the point of emaciation. Two large buboes the size of eggs stood out pitch-black against the pallored skin of his neck and both oozed brackish blood that reeked of decay. The poor man’s eyes were unfocused, staring half-lidded at Aziraphale though not truly seeing him. It was clear that he was not long for this world; saying he had  _ hours  _ would be generous.

With a great deal of effort, Aziraphale crouched in front of the dying human. His body still ached from the wound dealt by Crowley’s infernal sword over 300 years ago, and he had only recently regained his strength to walk in the past decade. Aziraphale sighed deeply and pressed his hand, black blood caked under his chipped nails, over the human’s eyes.

“Go in peace…” he whispered, delivering a miracle for a quick passing.

The man’s chest gave one last stuttering exhale, then was still. Aziraphale sighed and dragged his hand down the human’s face, closing his eyelids. The angel gripped his crutch in trembling hands and managed to stagger back to his feet.

Propriety dictated that Aziraphale bury the poor man rather than leaving him where he’d died, but the state of the city had made that an impossibility. The cemeteries were full to bursting, unable to keep up with the ever-growing numbers of the dead. Indeed, the undertakers had been forced to dig holes wherever there was spare land and roll the bodies in before shallowly covering them with earth and moving onto the next spot. It was a tedious, labor-intensive, and wretched job.

But it was one that  _ needed  _ to be done, lest Firenze become piled high with festering corpses. Although… it was already well on its way, if the man in the street was any indication. Aziraphale turned away from the body and continued his mournful limp down the street. This disease…

It was insidious, cruel, and made no distinction between rich and poor, young or old, woman or man.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate.

The Plague made no distinction between rich and poor, certainly, but it seemed to kill women and children at a higher rate than men, much to Aziraphale’s dismay. Had he known any better, he would have attributed the disease to Hellish machinations.

As it stood, however, it was simply a facet of life for the time period.

Lack of sanitation and overcrowding all conspired to send Europe tipping over the edge into one of the darkest periods he’d ever seen in his time on Earth. Aziraphale  _ desperately  _ hoped it would be the last, but he highly doubted it. He sidestepped a street dog with a dirt-covered bone in his mouth. The angel clapped a hand over his mouth to fight down the tide of revulsion he felt at the sight of it; no use pretending that was an animal bone.

He passed under an open window from which he could hear a woman’s shrieking lamentations. Though he couldn’t place the voice, he recognized the house. A lovely couple and their five children lived there.

Now it was only her.

Aziraphale felt a tear trace its way down his cheek as he continued. He stumbled by a man who was crouched in the street, cradling a woman’s body to his chest. She had already gone stiff with rigor mortis, but still he refused to leave her side as his black-tipped fingers stroked her cold cheek and he frantically babbled entreaties for her to come back.

It mattered little.

He would be joining her soon enough.

The sight of the husband, mad with grief and uncaring of his own health, was what finally cracked Aziraphale’s facade. The angel slumped against a boarded-up doorway with  _ “morto”  _ painted over it, buried his face in his filthy hands, and sobbed loudly.

His heart  _ ached  _ for the humans, but he wanted nothing more than to return to Heaven and back to Gabriel’s comforting embrace. He wanted to  _ help, _ he wanted to  _ leave,  _ he wanted to  _ scream,  _ he wanted to-

He wanted to go home.

Aziraphale tucked his knees up to his chest.

He couldn’t go home.

He  _ refused  _ to go home.

When the first cases of Plague presented themselves, Aziraphale had eagerly volunteered to assist the humans in any way possible. Gabriel, ever the pragmatic one, had expressed concerns that all of his husband’s work would be for naught. Aziraphale was only one angel, and Pestilence was on the warpath.

More than that, however, Gabriel was worried.

Aziraphale was still not fully recovered from the injury to his True Form, and Gabriel feared a relapse if Aziraphale wasn’t careful. Perhaps Gabriel needed to go with him...

Aziraphale had pointed out that, if this Plague  _ was  _ going to be as bad as Gabriel feared it would be, then the Archangel would be needed in Heaven to catalogue the influx of new souls that would be arriving. Faced with the prospect of being buried beneath a metaphorical avalanche of paperwork, Gabriel had reluctantly acquiesced with the condition that Aziraphale return home the  _ moment  _ it all became too much.

That had been three years ago.

Aziraphale had been forced to watch as the Plague marched its way across the continent, and he had been powerless to stop it. What had started out as a self-imposed mission to heal and cure as many as he could, quickly descended to desperately trying to comfort the dying. His energy for healing miracles was finite, and every day there were more infected. He could do nothing in the face of such overwhelming odds. Perhaps it was time to return to Heaven after all...

The ominous jingling of a crier’s bell echoed in the stillness of the streets, accompanied by the creaking wheels of a pull-cart.

_ “Morti! Morti! Porta fuori i tuoi morti!”  _ a familiar voice rang out.

Aziraphale lifted tear-stained eyes towards the sound of the bells. A man, tall and thin, dressed in black robes with a hauntingly recognizable beaked mask affixed to his face was pushing a cart laden with corpses down the street, calling for families to bring the dead from their homes to be buried.

Aziraphale scrubbed away his tears with a filthy sleeve that left a grimy streak behind on his cheek.

“Is that you, Crowley?” he sniffled.

The crier flinched, then lifted his mask, revealing a demonic face that Aziraphale would know  _ anywhere.  _ His long red hair, tangled with grime, cascaded freely about his head.

“Angel? Why are you sitting there in the mud? Shouldn’t you be out performing healing miracles or something?”

At the mention of ‘healing miracles’, Aziraphale broke out into desperate wails that were virtually indistinguishable from the mourning around him. Crowley staggered back, his serpentine eyes wide with shock. “What the  _ Heaven’s  _ gotten into you?”

“Oh, Crowley! It’s  _ terrible!  _ Everyone’s dead or dying and I can’t- I can’t-” Aziraphale collapsed back into sobs which shook his shoulders.

Crowley looked up and down the street for a moment before crouching down beside the weeping angel.

“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay. This can’t last much longer, right?” he said awkwardly.

Aziraphale whimpered and shook his head. Crowley turned his eyes to the sky. “Where’s Gabe? This seems like too big a workload for one Principality.”

“He’s cataloguing all the new arrivals,” Aziraphale mumbled miserably.

“Yeah. Beelzebub’s in the same position. Lots of new souls and whatnot,”

“I haven’t seen Gabriel in years…”

_ “What?!”  _ Crowley reared back as though struck (or like a snake  _ about  _ to strike). “He left you down here  _ alone?!” _

“No. I chose this. I thought… I thought I could help,” the angel admitted with a shameful cast to his brow.

“Yeah, well, you’re just one angel. You can’t do it all. You’ll discorporate yourself trying,” Crowley huffed with a roll of his eyes.

As much as Aziraphale hated to admit it, his foe was right. He  _ was  _ just one angel. What hope did he possibly have to stand alone against what felt like the end of the world? He felt Crowley grab his wrist and pull him to his feet.

“What are-”

“Come on. You need to get back to Heaven and get  _ far  _ away from here,”

Before Aziraphlae could object, his still-unsteady legs wobbled out beneath him. Without the aid of his crutch to keep him upright, he stumbled with a cry only to be caught by Crowley’s wiry, but strong, arms around his waist. Aziraphale’s face smooshed against a narrow chest and he  _ would  _ have stammered out an apology had he not felt something uneven beneath his cheek. He immediately froze as a horrifying suspicion took hold of him.

“Crowley…”

“You alright there, angel? Not so pathetically weak that you can’t stand on your own two feet?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed, and he didn’t respond to the verbal taunt. The hand that was clutching at Crowley’s robe turned to a fist and  _ yanked,  _ rending the fabric in one clean pull. 

The demon’s torso was instantly exposed to the open air, exposing purplish-black buboes scattered over his skin. Aziraphale gasped sharply and Crowley shoved him roughly away, repairing his robe with a demonic miracle. Aziraphale caught himself against the wall as a furious glare was levelled at him.

“Crowley, you…  _ how?!  _ We aren’t able to get… we’re not  _ supposed  _ to-”

Crowley hissed angrily and slipped his mask back over his face.  _ “Angels  _ aren’t able to get sick,” he spat angrily. “Demons, however, are free game.”

With that, he stomped back to his cart loaded with corpses. Aziraphale took a moment to digest this new information before grabbing his crutch and hobbling after Crowley.

“How long have you been infected?” he demanded, trailing behind.

He miracled away his ability to smell as a particularly pungent wave of the scent of decay wafted from Crowley’s cart.

“Just a little over a day, give or take,” the demon griped, furiously ringing his bell to drown out the angel’s nagging.

“But… but you don’t have much time left! I’ve seen humans die in as little as two  _ days!”  _ Aziraphale gasped as he began running out of breath from his frantic, if slow, pursuit.

“Yeah, well, I’m not human am I-”

Crowley was cut off mid-sentence as he doubled over, gagging. He wrenched his mask off and vomited loudly into the street.

_ “Crowley!!” _

Aziraphale limped over as fast as he could and placed a hand on the other’s back. “Oh dear… you’re already so far gone…”

Crowley slapped his hand away with a snarl.

_ “I don’t need your pity!” _

“Will you stop being childish and let me  _ help you  _ you stupid demon!” Aziraphale snapped, his voice echoing off the surrounding stone buildings. Crowley went silent, a petulant toddler put in his place, and looked away with a pout. Aziraphale took a deep breath to calm himself. “Let me cure you. I have just enough energy left for one last healing miracle.”

The demon’s shoulders slumped with a sigh. “It won’t work,” he said quietly. “This is… this is one of those things that my kind have to live with. We’re Fallen. Cut off from all love, kindness, and… and mercy.”

Aziraphale shook his head adamantly. “No! I refuse to believe that!” He held up a glowing palm. “Let me just-”

His wrist was caught in a claw-tipped hand.

_ “Don’t  _ waste your miracle on me. I can promise it won’t work,” Crowley growled.

Aziraphale met his gaze and held it, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Physicists have oft wondered what would happen if the two should ever meet, and now the answer was clear.

They would just glare at each other for a solid minute before the unstoppable force yanked his hand away from the immovable object.

“Fine!” Aziraphale huffed. Then his face softened considerably. “Would you at least let me stay by your side to ease your passing?”

Crowley scoffed and rolled his once-yellow eyes, now rapidly clouding over with fever.

“Why? ‘S not like it’s permanent. I’ll just come back with another body soon enough,”

Aziraphale placed a gentle hand on the inseam of the demon’s elbow. “Because you don’t deserve to suffer,” he said quietly.

“I think God would beg to disagree,” Crowley chuckled bitterly with a shake of his head.

For once, Aziraphale didn’t argue with him.

***~*~*~*~***

**3 Days Later…**

If Aziraphale hadn’t already been taking care of those dying from Plague, he would have considered these past three days to be harrowing. As it stood, the hardest part was dealing with a cranky, petulant demon on the road to Discorporation.

At least, that’s what Aziraphale told himself.

He sat at Crowley’s bedside, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he struggled with a fitful, restless sleep. Sweat steamed off every inch of his feverish skin, and his lips were cracked from dehydration with how often he had vomited. His eyes were cloudy-white and even his  _ hair  _ seemed to have lost a lot of its lustre.

As Aziraphale dabbed at Crowley’s forehead with a cloth soaked in cold water, he found himself reflecting on the precariousness of the situation. Here was Crowley, his greatest nemesis, laying utterly vulnerable and at Aziraphale’s mercy. The angel’s eyes drifted to the bowl of water by said nemesis’s bed. 

It would be so  _ easy. _

A whisper of a prayer, and the water would be blessed hard enough to practically peel the paint off the wall. Crowley didn’t even need to be awake. He’d never know what hit him until it was  _ far  _ too late to do anything. Hell, he might not even awaken at  _ all;  _ simply enter oblivion without so much as a whimper.

Aziraphale banished the thought as soon as it came. The fact that Crowley was willing to be so vulnerable around him pointed to only one thing.

Crowley  _ trusted  _ him.

Trust was a Heavenly virtue, and one that Aziraphale hadn’t expected Crowley to possess.

After all, it’d be a very funny world if demons ran around trusting angels.

The sweat-soaked, plague-riddled proof, however, was right in front of him. For better or worse, Crowley trusted Aziraphale  _ not  _ to melt him like so much demonic goo on the floor.

Therefore, Aziraphale would not do anything to jeopardize that virtue. Perhaps, given enough time, Crowley may cultivate others such as compassion, generosity, love-

Aziraphale jolted at that last one, dropping the rag to the floor with a wet splat. Crowley groaned and opened his eyes. Instead of complaining that his sleep was disturbed, he instead sucked in a rattling breath.

“‘Zir’phale… think it’s time…” he slurred around a tongue that felt like a strip of sandpaper.

Aziraphale scooted his chair closer. “Is it… are you about to Discorporate?” he whispered.

To his surprise and confusion, Crowley feebly shook his head.

“No…” he mumbled. “No… sssssssstill gonna drag out for a few more dayssss. Can tell…”

Aziraphale frowned.

“Then what-”

Crowley lifted a trembling hand (the effort for that alone looked like it was monumental) and pointed to his bedside drawer.

“‘N there… will help…”

He let his arm flop back down to the mattress as his caretaker slid the drawer open to peer inside. The drawer was completely bare apart from a single, gleaming knife. Aziraphale immediately slammed the drawer shut.

_ “No!  _ Absolutely not!” he hissed.

Crowley hacked, a string of bile dribbling down his chin. “Why  _ not?!”  _ he whined. “Y’ve alwayssss wanted to Dis- Discorporate me. Well now’ssss yer… yer chance…”

“You’re  _ defenseless!”  _ Aziraphale protested. “It wouldn’t be  _ right!” _

Crowley’s eyes scrunched closed and he forced out a,  _ “Pleassse,  _ angel! It… it hurtsss.”

Aziraphale felt something warm trace its way down his face and he brought up his hand to investigate. His fingertips came away wet with a clear liquid. Were those… were those  _ tears?!  _ He stared down at his quivering hand, then back at Crowley. His eyes remained steadfastly closed, but his bottom lip was trembling as though he were fighting back tears of his own.

Aziraphale remembered how Crowley had talked so resignedly about his own fate as a demon.

_ Cut off from all love, kindness, and mercy. _

It was all rather hypocritical of himself, Aziraphale thought. Here he was not an hour hence wondering if Crowley were able to nurture Heavenly Virtues within himself, and yet here Aziraphale sat not willing to  _ be  _ an example of those very same virtues.

Perhaps demons were incapable of feeling them unless they saw how it was done first? Perhaps, on a deeper metaphysical level, they quite literally couldn’t feel those virtues without first  _ receiving  _ them. Aziraphale had once trusted Crowley, and was rewarded with his trust in kind.

Perhaps now it was time to show him what mercy was.

With a sigh, Aziraphale stood and retrieved the knife from the drawer. Though Crowley’s eyes remained closed, he could see how the demon’s brow relaxed and his mouth quirked up a little in a relieved smile. Aziraphale, no stranger to bladed weapons, tested the heft of the knife in his hands. It was lightweight, quite clearly an assassin’s weapon, with the blade edge honed thin enough to split a hair down the middle.

“How… how do you want to do this?” he asked.

“Help me ssssit up,” Crowley groaned.

Aziraphale set the knife down on the mattress and hooked his hands under Crowley’s underarms to hoist him up into a seating position. The demon immediately slumped forward when he was released, bearing his knobby spine. “Get… get me ‘n th’ back of th’ head. Right where th’ spine is. Quick and p-painlesssss.”

Aziraphale nodded, though Crowley couldn’t see it from his prone position. The angel pressed the tip of the knife right at the base of his soon-to-be-victim’s skull, with the tip of the blade angled upwards towards his brainstem. One quick thrust is all it would take.

Aziraphale, despite being a chosen wielder of one of the four Flaming Swords of Eden, was still hesitant to take a life - temporarily though it be.

“I… I’m sorry…” he whispered.

“‘Ngel… promisssse me something…” Crowley groaned. With the last of his strength, he turned his head to look up at his murderer and his savior through foggy eyes.

Aziraphale felt pinned in place as though Crowley’s gaze had speared him through the wings and against the opposite wall.

Quite against his will, the angel found himself whispering, “Anything.” in reply.

“Go home, angel. Fly far away from thissssss place,”

Aziraphale swallowed and nodded, choking on the words he stumbled to say.

“I… I will,”

Crowley’s eyes slid shut, a man finally at peace. Aziraphale closed his eyes too and drove the knife forward.

It was over almost instantly.

There came the sound of metal sinking bone and flesh, pushed through by angelic strength, then what sounded like a crackling fire. Aziraphale peeled his eyes open and watched as Crowley’s now-empty Corporation fizzled and popped as it slowly dissolved to nothing.

With one final puff of ash, all that remained on the bed was the faint indentation on the mattress where Crowley had been laying. Aziraphale let the knife clatter to the floor from between numb fingers as he rose onto his feet, grabbed his crutch, and staggered for the door.

He had a promise to keep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want have me tarred and feathered for this I can be found at candyqueenblog.tumblr.com


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